Installing SYS/BIOS 6.34 on Pandaboard

There are next 2 forums for support about respective development,

BIOS forum

Code Composer Forum

I am mentioning them like support in case of development, but the answer to your question if it is possible to bring up SYS/BIOS on Panda board depends on what OS you are using.

If it is a 4AI or 4AJ releases from omapedia or TI's release you will need Ducati source code that uses SysBios to integrate your driver, you need to contact TI representative to ask for Ducati source code access.

If you are not using a Operating System that uses Ducati, then you need to check if SysBios is already being used or not, if it is not then you will need to upload it following the TRM's instructions to boot, and if it is already using it then you need to investigate how is it being used to integrate your driver to it.

For information about CCS and SysBios

http://processors.wiki.ti.com/index.php/Main_Page

http://processors.wiki.ti.com/index.php/Category:SYSBIOS

http://processors.wiki.ti.com/index.php/Category:CCS

For public information about Ducati and RPMSG

http://omapedia.org/wiki/Ducati_For_Dummies

http://omapedia.org/wiki/Category:RPMsg

You can find more tools and compilers used when developing with SysBios, one reference to them can be found in

http://omapedia.org/wiki/RPMsg_BIOS_Sources

and in

http://processors.wiki.ti.com/index.php/Category:MFP

The reference I make to http://processors.wiki.ti.com/index.php is because this site contains information about the SysBios and other tools, each tool contains a docs directory with information about them, but in this site you cannot find a OMAP4 reference since it's information is in omapedia.org mainly.

Hi Manuel,

Thanks for responding.

"the answer to your question if it is possible to bring up SYS/BIOS on Panda board depends on what OS you are using". What do you mean by "depends on what OS you are using"??

Isn't it possible to boot the pandaboard with a SD card having SYS/BIOS flashed on it? If not then how can I test my driver after porting it to SYS/BIOS??

What I meant with "depends on what OS you are using" is that for what I know for Panda board if it is running a 4AI or 4AJ release it is using Ducati for example, Ducati uses SYSBIOS to run on it, then it is my understanding that if you plan to use it in this platform then the only part where SYSBIOS is being used is in Ducati, then to migrate your driver to this platform and you want to do it in SYSBIOS the only part that uses it is Ducati. The same for other OSes if they are using SYSBIOS already or not, in the case of not you should be able to add it depending on how it is being used.

About the use of SYSBIOS to boot it should be possible to boot using Code Composer Studio (CCS) and run a binary, I have read how to use it out of actual systems or it is used for development from CCS, but it should be possible to boot using it but I don't have that information.

You can ask in BIOS forum shared in my previous post, in the SYSBIOS link I shared it is mentioned it's for use "on TI DSPs, ARMs, and MCUs", but I haven't read how to use it from ARM side yet. For OMAP4 and ARM side it is using Linux to boot then SYSBIOS is loaded  and RPMSG is used to send message to Ducati side.

Thank you Manuel, that is very useful.  I am working with Deepak on this project.  Thanks to the very helpful people on this forum, I have successfully gotten a "hello" program to run on the M3.

Our goal is to create a set of SYS/BIOS board support libraries to implement OpenGLES.  This leads me to a couple more questions:

1) Can the M3 core access the same hardware as the A9?  That is, can I program the display controller to set a video mode on the DVI port, can I access the file system on the SD Card, can I access the SGX GPU? All without help from the A9?

2) are there existing SYS/BIOS BSLs to access the display controller and set a video mode?

Thank you!

Noel

Answers for:

1) I checked OMAP4430 TRM and in chapter 7 it is described M3 cores, in section 7.3.1 in the first 2 paragraphs it is mentioned possible answer, but checking Table 17-2 for Cortex-A9 interupts and Table 17-3 for Cortex-M3 interrupts it should be possible to know what peripherals are supported in Cortex-M3 side. For Display and SD Card peripheral access and referencing the tables check the number at the end of the row in the table for that element. I cannot see SGX interrupt in Cortex-M3 table.

2) I don't remember a SYSBIOS module to control video mode when I read it time ago, but I could have missed it, it is better to ask in BIOS forum for correct reference. But I found that IPC tools includes some driver interfaces to use to design drivers that could help in some way, check IPC link in SYSBIOS other components section in it's wiki page. Each of the other tools has a function to add when designing or developing code.

Thank you Manuel, this tells me what I need to know.  I'll search for a better platform for this work.

Noel