Interesting experiment on G400D

NETMF & Gadgeteer
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Interesting experiment in progress on G400D + HDR:


AT91Bootstrap 3.6.0-00026-g8fd947e-dirty (gio 23 gen 2014, 16.53.50, CET)

1-Wire: Loading 1-Wire information ...
1-Wire: ROM Searching ... Done, 0x0 1-Wire chips found

WARNING: 1-Wire: No 1-Wire chip found

1-Wire: Using defalt value SYS_GPBR2: 0x4010425, SYS_GPBR3: 0x8421

SF: Got Manufacturer and Device ID:0x1f 0x27 0x1 0x0 0x0
SF: Copy 0x80000 bytes from 0x8400 to 0x26f00000
SF: Done to load image


U-Boot 2013.07-00042-ga5e91c5 (Jan 23 2014 - 15:43:23)

CPU: AT91SAM9X35
Crystal frequency:       12 MHz
CPU clock        :      400 MHz
Master clock     :  133.333 MHz
DRAM:  128 MiB
WARNING: Caches not enabled
NAND:  atmel_nand: Fail to initialize #0 chip0 MiB
MMC:   mci: 0
SF: Detected AT45DB321D with page size 528 Bytes, total 16.5 MiB
SF: Warning - Only lower 16MiB accessible, Full access #define CONFIG_SPI_FLASH_BAR
*** Warning - bad CRC, using default environment

In:    serial
Out:   serial
Err:   serial
Net:   macb0
Warning: failed to set MAC address

Hit any key to stop autoboot:  0

I’ve got AT91Bootstrap and U-Boot compiled and working on it.
Now I’m working on kernel and device tree, boot from sd and so on … It’s long trip … ???

2 Likes
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Great job!

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By the way, in case you haven’t seen this. @ Rajesh did this for Hydra awhile back. Here is the document he created about the process:

https://www.ghielectronics.com/docs/150/linux-on-hydra

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@ Architect - Thank you, I’ve seen that beautiful doc from Rajesh. I got lot of info out of it.

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@ dobova - Awesome! Glad to see someone has gotten somewhere on this. This is one of the few projects I’ve been meaning to spend time on in my personal time, but family life is quite hectic :wink:

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I had already done most of the work for Linux on G400 in June 2013. GHI had kindly sent me an early prototype of the G400 for me to work on - thank you.

However the early prototype had problems with the SD interface and Networking, i could not complete and publish a document on running Linux on G400.

If there is sufficient interest I may try to get an updated hardware version.

I have attached a photo of the current state and running UBOOT and X Windows on a T35.

Not to mention I have emailed the GHI team several times to help with testing but never heard back.

Enjoy.

looking at my UBOOT image the build date was March 2013 :slight_smile: … almost a year now !

1 Like
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@ Rajesh - uh … that’s interesting Rajesh.
I didn’t know that someone has just done it !
I’ve SD working on a G400 v1.2 (beta), but only if boot is from FAT32 partition.

Have you a guide to install ?

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Yes you will use a FAT32 partition to boot by placing bootloader, uboot and the linux kernel on that partition.

Post Linux bootup it can mount a larger ext3 partition with filesytem. This is where I have problems, SD gets very intermittent.

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@ Rajesh - Ok thanks for the info. I own G400D v1.2 and G400D v1.3.
So I can try to startup kernel and see what’s happen.

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This was actually on my mind this morning. A guy had recommended that I add a RasPi to run Octoprint on my 3D printer. I remembered you had Linux running on Hydra and was wondering about G400. Have you been able to use a WiFi dongle on either of these boards after installing Linux?

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Wifi Dongle on G400 should be possible. Hydra does not have USB host.

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@ Rajesh - wich kernel did you use for compilation ?
I’m taking a look on github but not so easy to checkout the correct one.

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I think I used 3.6.9. You should be able to use that or 4.x.

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@ Rajesh - Ok thanks. I’m facing problems with kernel load from SD to memory. Probably will need some u-boot mmc driver modifications. I will check with some older SD.

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@ dobova - good progress.

Please let me know the board version, SD module version and the SD make that you are using.

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Sure, I will inform you as soon I’ve the info.
Board is G400d v1.2(beta kit). Sd are sandisk of various speed and capacity.

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By 1.2 Beta, were there any errata for this board ?

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I just remember that there was a thread on the forum about that, but I can’t find anymore. I remind just an ethernet problem on the embedded MAC/PHY interface.
I’ve also a v1.3 G400D i will check.

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Ok.

You can try with the shortest gadgeteer cable you have for the SD module.

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I realize now that there’s a forum topic for Not-NETMF discussion :-[

This are latest test:
-G400D Board V1.3 face the same exact problem.
-The SD works fine in NETMF.

  • microSD GHI board has the same issue.

From U-Boot I’ve used the “mmc read” command and I see that I can’t read more then 16K from the card. Kernel uImage.bin is more than that. I think that problem is relative to fat32 partition logical view or cyl/head/sect align in the partition. I don’t know why.