Subject: Linux for EP7212

From: Kong Gang Feng <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat, 24 Jun 2000 20:46:45 +0800

Hi,

I need to build a light-task-load device, which has a small
gray scale gui (say 320x240 running Microwindows),several
buttons,and audio, but without touch panel. StrongARM seems 
too powerful and consumes too much power. I like to adapt
the arch of EP7212 from Cirrus Logic.

Is there existing linux port to EP7212? So far my searching
said 'no'. If this is the case, what is the shortest path
to make a linux port over it?

Personally, I refer to start from Nicolas' SA11xx porting,
and apply a patch to it for EP7212. They seem to have the
same core, so toolchains should be able to share.
What aspects, which pieces of source code should I look at
to make the porting.
Any advice?

Thanks
Kong

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From: Benjamin Mayer Stocks <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat, 24 Jun 2000 00:50:28 +0000

I've noticed a fair amount of traffic as of late
pertaining to the Intel EBSA285 and I was
wondering what the status of that port is? Is
someone maintaining it? If so where are the
resources kept? I did some work with it a few
months ago and I'm interested in getting back into
it. Any info or web addr's would be most helpful.

Thanks,

Ben

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From: Russell King - ARM Linux Admin <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat, 24 Jun 2000 09:36:09 +0100 (BST)

Benjamin Mayer Stocks writes:
> wondering what the status of that port is?

I haven't tested the 2.4.0 stuff yet on my EBSA285, since I'm not in
the habit of running development kernels on my main server.

> Is someone maintaining it?

Apparantly me.  It is close enough to the NetWinder to catch most of
the problems - however there can be a few minor problems that aren't
picked up.

> If so where are the resources kept?

Well, kernel-wise, everything you need is in my patches to Linus
kernel.
   _____
  |_____| ------------------------------------------------- ---+---+-
  |   |        Russell King       [email-masked]      --- ---
  | | | |            http://www.arm.linux.org.uk/            /  /  |
  | +-+-+                                                     --- -+-
  /   |               THE developer of ARM Linux              |+| /|\
 /  | | |                                                     ---  |
    +-+-+ -------------------------------------------------  /\\\  |

---

From: "Jim Fischer" <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 25 Jun 2000 06:34:56 -0700

----- Original Message -----
From: "Russell King - ARM Linux Admin" <[email-masked]>
To: "Benjamin Mayer Stocks" <[email-masked]>
Cc: <[email-masked]>
Sent: Saturday, June 24, 2000 1:36 AM
Subject: Re: EBSA-285 Status

> the problems - however there can be a few minor problems that aren't

Russell (et al.),

I'm working with an EBSA-285 as well, and have successfully (I think!)
created an i[5|6]86 to StrongARM cross compiler. [I haven't successfully
built the glibc stuff yet, but I'm getting close...]

I'm at the point where I'm about ready to download some binaries onto the
EBSA card, but I haven't been able to find any utilities that I can use to
do this. Specifically, I'm looking for a FAQ or README or HOWTO somewhere
that discusses how to:

a) Create a compressed kernel image, RAM disk, basic file system and some
tools (e.g., bash shell) that can be booted from the EBSA 285's flash
memory, and,

b) Download a binary 'elf' image from a PC host (running Windows
NT/DOS/Linux) to the EBSA's flash memory

I've been browsing through the arm-linux mailing list archives the past few
days, but just about every web/ftp link I've found is more-or-less defunct.
Any suggestions / pointers on these topics would be greatly appreciated...

Jim Fischer
CPE/MSEE Grad Student
Cal Poly, SLO

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From: Mathias Teikari <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 26 Jun 2000 12:35:35 +0200

Jim, and others who are interested..

I am also working with the EBSA-285. My plans are to port the Journaling Flash
File System (JFFS) supplied as open source (GPL) by Axis Communications,   (
http://developer.axis.com/software/jffs/ )
and eventually boot and run linux from it on a stand alone EBSA.

During development and debug, I intend to upload the kernel via the serial port
and to mount an NFS root file system.

> tools (e.g., bash shell) that can be booted from the EBSA 285's flash

I'm using the EBSA-285 bios-1.06 from
ftp://ftp.arm.linux.org.uk/pub/armlinux/source/boot/
with Nicolas Pitre's patch ebsa285-bios-1.06.diff2, available at
ftp://ftp.netwinder.org/users/n/nico/
where you can also find various patches and examples of ramdisk images.
The bios allows you to boot from flash, network, serial port or disk. Building
the kernel is done the usual way once you've got your arm-toolchain set up and
running. There is of course the minor issue of tweaking the top level makefile
to use the arm relevant part of the kernel and your cross-toolchain.
(i.e. set ARCH = arm and CROSS_COMPILE = arm-linux- (provided, of course, that
your toolchain prefix is arm-linux-  ;o) )

> NT/DOS/Linux) to the EBSA's flash memory

There is a flash burning utility for Linux systems and EBSA-285 that comes with
the eCos-1.3.1 distribution. How to use it is described in the "Getting started
with eCos" document under "Loading the ROM image into on-board flash".
http://sourceware.cygnus.com/ecos/
The Intel FMU that comes with the EBSA should also do the trick, although I
haven't used it myself.

Enjoy!  ;o)

    - Mathias

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---

From: Benjamin Mayer Stocks <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 26 Jun 2000 13:10:02 +0000

So I assume your plan is to write a custom
bootloader? Or are you going to
attempt to use the Angel firmware?

---

From: Mathias Teikari <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 26 Jun 2000 16:12:44 +0200

I intend to use the linux-arm bios mentioned before. While porting and debugging
I'll use the serial port to upload and boot the kernel and mount the root fs via
NFS.

The next step would be to use, say, the first two flash blocks to store the bios and
a kernel image and the other fourteen as a block device which I would use to hold my
root fs. (i.e. the kernel itself doesn't reside on this filesystem at this stage)

First when that setup works I could possibly consider to write a custom bootloader
and use the entire flash (except from the bootloader) as a disk. However, this is
out of my current scope.

Now I would like to take the opportunity to point out that I am not an expert on
developing embedded systems...  -Yet!  ;o)
If anyone spots major flaws in this approach I would be grateful If you'd let me
know. I am very open to criticism, advice and discussion!

Cheers,
    - Mathias

---

From: Benjamin Mayer Stocks <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 27 Jun 2000 01:33:08 +0000

Where is the linux-arm bios maintained? I've been
using the PCI bus method
of booting the EBSA but I'm always open to other
methods and would like to
give this a try.

---

From: "Hugo Fiennes" <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 28 Jun 2000 16:15:12 +0100

> to make a linux port over it?

We have a port, which will shortly be released - ie when the hardware is
released (the Rio Receiver/Dell audio receiver run linux & our player code
on a 7212).

It's got various useful bits, such as an audio driver, dhcp client (well,
enough of one to reside in kernel), consumer ir driver, light keyboard
matrix/rotary control driver & so on. We use the same toolchain for the
(SA-based) empeg-car, you just use different compile options to specify the
specific arm variant. The production hardware doesn't use segmented physical
ram, though there are some vestiges of the segmented ram code from the 7110
port that it was based on still in-kernel.

It's also got various double-booting code in so that it can dhcp boot, load
a new kernel & network driver module over NFS and reboot into it preserving
the ip configuration, etc.

Hugo
empeg