Utilite Freescale i.MX6 support

[Pete Wright]

On 02/03/14 05:54, Ian Lepore wrote:
> On Sun, 2014-02-02 at 20:41 -0800, Pete Wright wrote:
>> On Sun, Feb 02, 2014 at 01:55:50PM -0700, Ian Lepore wrote:
>>> On Wed, 2014-01-29 at 10:39 -0800, Pete Wright wrote:
>>>> Hello,
>>>> I have recently purchase this device and am interested in trying to get
>>>> FreeBSD running on it:
>>>>
>>>> http://utilite-computer.com/web/utilite-models
>>>>
>>>> I currently have the system booting fine with the provided Debian image
>>>> they ship with these system.  At the end of this message is the output
>>>> of dmesg from linux-land.
>>>>
>>>> Helpful documentation is also available here:
>>>> http://utilite-computer.com/download/documentation//utilite/utilite-technical-reference-manual.pdf
>>>>
>>>> From what I can tell Utilite has done a good job at being open about
>>>> their spec's and components.  Hopefully this will help get it ported.  I
>>>> am personally excited about the dual Intel GBE NIC's on this system and
>>>> would love to test this box out as an embedded router/firewall/nat device.
>>>>
>>>> Is there a good reference I can start from for this chipset?  I am not
>>>> %100 clear on which guide I should be following.
>>>>
>>>> Thanks in advance!
>>>> -pete
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> <begin Linux dmesg>
>>>> [snipped]
>>>>
>>>
>>> I'm sorry it has taken me so long to reply to this.  Until today my
>>> reply would have had to been basically "freebsd will only kinda-sorta
>>> run on that box," and every day I've been hoping to fix the
>>> show-stopping bug and have something better to report.  As of today
>>> (r261410) the infamous wrong-endian bug is fixed and I think you won't
>>> have too much trouble getting freebsd running on that unit.
>>>
>> no worries thanks for the reply!
>>
>> <snip>
>>
>>  
>>> To get started, you should probably start with the Wandboard dts files
>>> and kernel config.  One thing that jumps out at me is that the Utilite
>>> uses uart ports 2 and 4, so to have a serial console for debugging
>>> you'll need to change the dts source to enable uart2 and select it as
>>> the console in the choosen {...} block.  Unfortunately, because it's
>>> Compulab, you'll probably have to buy their overpriced serial cable with
>>> the weird connector on it (they do the same thing on the FitPc2).
>>>
>>
>> thanks for the pointers!  i was lucky enough to have them include the
>> serial console cable with the box at no additional cost so no worries there.
>>
>> i did create an image using crochet-freebsd using the  wanboard-quad
>> config.  it was failing trying to load uboot it looked like (no output
>> on console) so i have some testing to do on that end (and bug reports
>> too as well).
>>
>> i will re-build the images tonight to grab the latest patches as well as
>> including the change for dts source as well.
>>
>> since the box already has uboot installed on it i was assuming i could
>> just copy over the kernel image via nfs or tftp...so i will try that as
>> well.
>>
>> cheers!
>> -pete
>>
> 
> I haven't gotten ubldr to work yet, I'm going to look into that this
> week.  To net-load and launch the kernel directly, something like this
> should work:
> 
> tftp 12000000 172.22.42.240:/wand/boot/kernel/kernel
> go 12000100

fantastic thanks for the pointer there.

> 
> When rebuilding u-boot for the Utilite, some config may need to be
> changed to use uart2 or 4 for the console.  In theory, Compulab should
> make the config and any other u-boot source changes available, since
> it's GPL.

for now i'm going to try to piggy-back on their uboot build so i can get
the mechanics of building and running a freebsd kernel sorted out.  once
i get that done i am hoping to spend more cycles on the uboot stuff.

cheers,
-pete



-- 
Pete Wright
pete at nomadlogic.org
twitter => @nomadlogicLA