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September 17, 2009 10:01 PM

Categories: PogoPlug Development

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bvwelch

Member
Joined: 09/10/2009

Greetings,

If I am understanding correctly, the U-boot on the pogoplug doesn't provide a direct means of allowing us to evaluate various Linux distro via a usb thumbdrive or hard drive.

Has anyone worked on something similar to the NSLU2-Linux 'turnup' program? If not, I may give it a shot, although I probably won't do anything as nice and elegant as they did.

In a nutshell, we'd need to re-mount the nand root as writable, and replace linuxrc with a script that pivot-roots over to a usb drive.

Dumb idea, or worth a try?

Thanks,

-bill

Discussion:    Add a Comment | Comments 1-3 of 3 | Latest Comment

Generic Member Avatar
Member
September 18, 2009 5:57 AM updated: September 18, 2009 6:43 AM

The "as shipped" pogoplug uBoot does not provide for booting the kernel from usb. The sheevaplug uBoot does boot the kernel from usb.

I think replacing uBoot maybe easier. RAM size is different (256 vs. 512MB), other than that they are the same.

I've successfully compiled the pogoplug and sheevaplug uBoots to run from RAM but not yet from nand. For some reason the same sheevaplug uBoot code that boots the kernel when runing from RAM does not boot the kernel when running from nand. From RAM it correctly thinks there is 256 MB RAM but from nand it thinks there is 512MB RAM.

Once the uBoot is fixed to boot the kernel from usb you can set the uBoot environment to do multi-boot like this:
http://plugcomputer.org/plugwiki/index.php/Multi-Boot

Of course there is a much greater possibility of bricking your pogoplug with a change to uBoot. A bricked uBoot would require a jtag connection for recovery and I haven't figured that one out yet.

Generic Member Avatar
Member
September 18, 2009 8:49 AM

Thank you for your reply. I'm glad to hear that you're already working on revising U-boot. Making the Pogo more like the Sheeva is a great idea. It would make the Pogo more versatile.

But, I think I'll try the pivot_root or switch_root approach first. It should be a relatively simple change, and I would like to get past this 'barrier', and on to my real goals.

But, if I don't get the pivot_root going quickly, perhaps we can work together to get your version of U-boot working from nand. I've worked with porting U-boot in the past, but it has been a few years, so things have likely changed a lot.

-bill

Generic Member Avatar
Member
September 18, 2009 3:04 PM

We can continue the conversation over at your thread on openpogo.
http://openpogo.com/forum/viewtopic.php?id=68

Discussion:    Add a Comment | Comments 1-3 of 3 | Latest Comment

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