Subject: EBSA-285 Help

From: Benjamin Stocks <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 07 Jul 1999 00:24:43 +0000

I was wondering if anyone could help me out. For a design project
through school
my team and I would like to work on Linux on the EBSA-285 board. We want
to work
with low power applications and thus our interest in ARM. We would like
to purchase an
Intel EBSA285 but the local firm that Intel resells through is trying to
push development kits
and backplanes and enough other things to add up to several thousand
dollar bill.
I was wondering, of those of you who use the EBSA what hardware is
really needed
to boot and run Linux? Also if there are any distributors that could be
recommended our
local one would like to pad their sales but trying to take advantage of
students. I have downloaded
the EBSA patches from the ARM site and we have a Linux box that will do
little but serve
the EBSA so I kinda doubt we need the development kits but any
experienced advice would
help and be greatly appreciated.

Thanks,

--
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Benjamin Stocks
Computer Engineering
Milwaukee School of Engineering
email: [email-masked]
http://www.msoe.edu/~stocksb

"Don't Panic"
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

---

From: <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 6 Jul 1999 19:30:54 -0500 (CDT)

Hi,

> to boot and run Linux? Also if there are any distributors that could be
Well, I am running Linux on a board very similar to the ebsa-285.  Here
is what hardware I have:
	-ebsa-285 like board, with 32MB RAM, DEC 21143 ethernet
	-Solaris 2.6 machine to boot off and use as a cross-compiler.

Basically, get the ebsa-285, and then boot it and run it disklessly off
of another machine.  You can build a cross-compiler from this machine
also to use a development machine until the ebsa is up and running.  As
far as firmware for hte ebsa goes, I believe Russell has some publically
available on the armlinux ftp site (ftp.arm.linux.org.uk).  Check under
/pub/armlinux for the firmware, I can't recall where it is off hand.
Hope this helps a little!

--
Kyle Mestery			| StorageTek's Storage Networking Group
[email-masked]		| http://www.freebsd.org/
[email-masked]		| http://www.netwinder.org/
	Protect your right to privacy: www.freecrypto.org

unsubscribe: body of `unsubscribe linux-arm' to [email-masked]

---

From: David Feustel <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 07 Jul 1999 06:39:41 -0500

The ESBA-285 card comes stock with 16 megabytes of memory and is downloaded via
the
serial i/o interface instead of the PCI bus. You can strap the ESBA-285 as a
non-host and
plug it into any pci bus slot.  The ARM Toolkit works well with the ESBA-285.
You might
be able to get the toolkit very cheaply if you contact GiGi at the ARM sales
office in California.

At 12:24 AM 7/7/99 +0000, Benjamin Stocks wrote: 
>
> I was wondering if anyone could help me out. For a design project through
> school 
> my team and I would like to work on Linux on the EBSA-285 board. We want to
> work 
> with low power applications and thus our interest in ARM. We would like to
> purchase an 
> Intel EBSA285 but the local firm that Intel resells through is trying to push
> development kits 
> and backplanes and enough other things to add up to several thousand dollar
> bill. 
> I was wondering, of those of you who use the EBSA what hardware is really
> needed 
> the EBSA so I kinda doubt we need the development kits but any experienced
> advice would 
> <http://www.msoe.edu/~stocksb>http://www.msoe.edu/~stocksb
> 
> "Don't Panic"

David Feustel
Fort Wayne, Indiana
219-483-1857

[email-masked]

PDF Attachments Are Always Virus-free

---

From: Paul Koning <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 7 Jul 1999 11:21:46 -0400

>>>>> "David" == David Feustel <[email-masked]> writes:

 David> The ESBA-285 card comes stock with 16 megabytes of memory and
 David> is downloaded via the serial i/o interface instead of the PCI
 David> bus. You can strap the ESBA-285 as a non-host and plug it into
 David> any pci bus slot. 

One poorly documented hassle in that configuration is that the only
way to reset the board is to do a PCI reset, which typically means a
hard reset on the system containg that board.

The reset pin on the board only works in the other configurations; you 
can deduce this from the schematics or block diagrams with some effort 
but it isn't made obvious.  I've been tempted to fix this (I'd call it 
a bug) but have resisted so far.

	paul

---

From: David Feustel <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 07 Jul 1999 11:04:52 -0500

That + the serial only interface are my biggest problems with the board.
I have a TI C6000 DSP card that downloads via the PCI bus and that can
be reset via software command. I'm kind of surprised that Intel didn't
incorporate
those capabilities into the ESBA-285.

David Feustel
Fort Wayne, Indiana
219-483-1857

[email-masked]

---

From: Jonathan Foster Kliegman <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 7 Jul 1999 14:28:14 -0400 (EDT)

Excerpts from linux-arm: 7-Jul-99 Re: EBSA-285 Help by David
[email-masked]. 
> those capabilities into the ESBA-285.

There are tools out there for downloading to the EBSA-285 over the
serial bus...  Mark van Doesburg <[email-masked]>
has a program which lets you download and boot a Linux kernel through
the PCI bus - I've used it and it works very well..  His patches also
include tools to let the host and the EBSA-285 machines talk to each
other..  He's got a site up at ftp://nt4.el.utwente.nl/pub/co285 which
should have those patches.  We've been using his downloading and booting
tools without a glitch for a while.

Also, in response to the original question:  We've got an EBSA-285
machine running Linux very easily.  We placed the EBSA-285 into an Intel
Linux box, use gcc (setup as a cross-compiler) to build the kernel, use
Mark's tools to build it, and use the Netwinder's disk image
(www.netwinder.com) mounted through NFS as the root disk..  We had to
fool a bit to get the network up - you have to put the EBSA-285 and the
network card for it in PCI slots which share an IRQ and then we had to
change the driver to use the IRQ_IN0 interrupt instead of the default
reported by the PCI bus.  

To summarize - you don't need any extra hardware to get the EBSA-285
running Linux.. The software is freely available out there and you don't
really need additional hardware.

-Jon

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From: Philip Blundell <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 07 Jul 1999 20:44:34 +0100

>incorporate those capabilities into the ESBA-285.

What stops you from doing this on the EBSA-285?

p.

---

From: Jonathan Foster Kliegman <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 7 Jul 1999 17:17:39 -0400 (EDT)

Excerpts from linux-arm: 7-Jul-99 Re: EBSA-285 Help  by Philip
[email-masked] 
> What stops you from doing this on the EBSA-285?

The EBSA-285 when used as an add-in board uses the PCI reset line to
reset itself.  This line (as far as I can tell) can not be asserted to
individual cards in a bus and is only controlable by direct manipulation
of the PCI bridge chip.  Resetting it will cause all of the PCI devices
in the system to reset.

-Jon

---

From: Paul Koning <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 7 Jul 1999 15:48:21 -0400

>>>>> "Philip" == Philip Blundell <[email-masked]> writes:

 >> That + the serial only interface are my biggest problems with the
 >> board.  I have a TI C6000 DSP card that downloads via the PCI bus
 >> and that can be reset via software command. I'm kind of surprised
 >> that Intel didn't incorporate those capabilities into the
 >> ESBA-285.

 Philip> What stops you from doing this on the EBSA-285?

Can you assert PCI bus reset under software control on a PC?  Because
PCI reset is the only way to do a 21285/SA110 reset if the card is in
"not central function" mode.

	paul

---

From: Philip Blundell <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 07 Jul 1999 22:35:31 +0100

>"not central function" mode.

Oh, is it?  Sigh.  No, you can't usually drive PCI reset without resetting the 
local bus and host cpu as well.

What happens if the watchdog fires in non-cfn mode then?

p.

---

From: Philip Blundell <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 07 Jul 1999 22:40:28 +0100

>of the PCI bridge chip.  Resetting it will cause all of the PCI devices

Actually I think any card is allowed to drive RESET# down, though obviously 
you are right that it will reset the entire bus (and on most systems take the 
rest of the machine with it).

If the EBSA has a jumper or test point on its local bus reset signal it 
wouldn't be beyond the wit of man to arrange to wire it to a parallel port or 
some other convenient output. :-)

p.

---

From: Jonathan Foster Kliegman <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 7 Jul 1999 17:44:43 -0400 (EDT)

> some other convenient output. :-)

You're making a big assumption here thinking that I've got wits...   I
haven't checked the physical wiring of the EBSA reset line out - if it
is easily accessible then I'll save many a reboot cycle on my host
machine..  

I know that it does have a jumper which controls what drives the reset
line - hopefully it won't be difficult to wire it so that it responds to
the PCI bus and an external input..  Anyone else have any experience
with this?

-Jon

---

From: Russell King - ARM Linux Admin <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 7 Jul 1999 23:19:40 +0100 (BST)

> What happens if the watchdog fires in non-cfn mode then?

The 21285 never drives the PCI_RST line when out of central-function mode
(the chip treats it as an input).

The data sheet is not clear whether or not the watchdog can be used to
assert nRESET, however common sense would suggest that it should be
capable.
   _____
  |_____| ------------------------------------------------- ---+---+-
  |   |        Russell King       [email-masked]      --- ---
  | | | |  http://www.arm.linux.org.uk/~rmk/armlinux.html    /  /  |
  | +-+-+                                                     --- -+-
  /   |               THE developer of ARM Linux              |+| /|\
 /  | | |                                                     ---  |
    +-+-+ -------------------------------------------------  /\\\  |

---

From: Paul Koning <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 8 Jul 1999 09:35:06 -0400

>>>>> "Russell" == Russell King <- ARM Linux Admin <[email-masked]>> writes:

 Russell> Philip Blundell writes:
 >> Oh, is it?  Sigh.  No, you can't usually drive PCI reset without
 >> resetting the local bus and host cpu as well.
 >> 

 Russell> The 21285 never drives the PCI_RST line when out of
 Russell> central-function mode (the chip treats it as an input).

 Russell> The data sheet is not clear whether or not the watchdog can
 Russell> be used to assert nRESET, however common sense would suggest
 Russell> that it should be capable.

Common sense would indeed suggest that, but that's not how it works.

I looked over the EBSA-285 manual and the 21285 data sheet last
night.  It turns out the problem is in the chip.

When in central function mode, there are lots of ways to get a reset.
In particular, nRESET is then an input (and the PCI reset signal is an 
output).  The watchdog mechanism is available, and you can also
generate a reset externally by pulling nRESET low.

However, in not-central-function mode, the ONLY reset mechanism is the 
PCI reset signal.  In particular, the watchdog does NOT work in that
mode.  (This is mentioned in the 21285 data book, the section on
timers.)  And nRESET is then only an output.

The EBSA-285 eval board is built according to these points: the
external reset signals are gated through a jumpered enable so they are 
fed to the 21285 only if central function is configured.

There are a number of what I would consider design errors in the
21285; you can add these two (no reset and no watchdog) to the list.

	paul