TDA4VM: How to using Uniflash to burn Linux kernel and rootFS into eMMC ON TDA4 Board?

Hi Gibbs,

There are some instructions at https://e2e.ti.com/support/processors/f/791/p/898360/3322707#3322707 which talk about this method. So essentially you load the filesystem (which has the kernel image) in the RAM from JTAG and then from u-boot you flash from the RAM to eMMC.

But with JTAG, the speed to load to the RAM is quite slow. I would suggest to flash a minimal file system using the above approach.

Regards,

Karan

Hi Gibbs,

I would suggest try to boot to kernel using a tiny file system.

1. Create the tisdk-tiny-image.tar.xz (You can take the attached tar ball I generated and skip to Step2)

git clone git://arago-project.org/git/projects/oe-layersetup.git tisdk
cd tisdk/
 
# Copy config file from the 7.00 installer yocto-build/configs/psdkla/psdkla-07_00_00.txt
./oe-layertool-setup.sh -f psdkla-07_00_00.txt
 
# export proxy
export ftp_proxy=http://webproxy.ext.ti.com:80
export http_proxy=http://webproxy.ext.ti.com:80
export https_proxy=http://webproxy.ext.ti.com:80
 
cd build
# Edit config file if you want to reuse downloads folder
vi conf/local.conf
. conf/setenv
 
# this is the path to the toolchains for ARMv7 and ARMv8
TOOLCHAIN_BASE=/sdk/tools MACHINE=j7-evm bitbake -k tisdk-tiny-image
 
# build image can be found here
la -la tisdk/build/arago-tmp-external-arm-glibc/deploy/images/j7-evm/tisdk-tiny-image-j7-evm.tar.xz

To save this time, I'm attaching an image I built - /cfs-file/__key/communityserver-discussions-components-files/791/tisdk_2D00_tiny_2D00_image_2D00_j7_2D00_evm.tar.xz

2. Create the tisdk-tiny-image.img

# Below code needs to run on the HOST machine
 
# Create an empty image file. 100MB should be enough for the image I shared.
dd if=/dev/null of=tisdk-tiny-image.img bs=1M seek=100
 
# Add a filesystem to it
mkfs.ext4 -F tisdk-tiny-image.img
 
# Mount it on your local machine to copy DTB and Kernel image
mkdir example_mnt_pt
sudo mount -t ext4 -o loop tisdk-tiny-image.img /home/karan/yocto-build/example_mnt_pt
 
# Untar tisdk-tiny-image-j7-evm.tar.xz on the mounted file system which is currently empty
cd example_mnt_pt
sudo tar xvf ../tisdk-tiny-image-j7-evm.tar.xz
 
# Copy DTB, DTBOs and Kernel Image for your platform. Without this the board won't boot!!
sudo cp /media/karan/rootfs/boot/Image* example_mnt_pt/boot
sudo cp /media/karan/rootfs/boot/*dtb* example_mnt_pt/boot
sync
 
# Unmount the image, now the tisdk-tiny-image.img is ready
cd ../
sudo umount /home/karan/yocto-build/example_mnt_pt

3. Use dfu-util / JTAG to flash the file system to eMMC User partition (attaching steps for DFU boot) - takes around 15mins for the image I attached.

You can also look at https://e2e.ti.com/support/processors/f/791/p/898360/3322707#3322707 in case you want to flash using JTAG (this will be slower)

• Connect Host PC to the MAIN UART of the board and connect minicom to the first instance
• Connect the USB Type C cable to the Host PC (Linux)
• Change boot mode to DFU boot mode
• Run the below on HOST (LINUX machine) and TARGET (EVM)

# This will download the images but now flash then to eMMC
HOST $ sudo dfu-util -l
HOST $ sudo dfu util -R -a bootloader -D <PATH_TO_BIN>/tiboot3.bin
HOST $ sudo dfu-util -R -a sysfw.itb -D <PATH_TO_BIN>/sysfw.itb
HOST $ sudo dfu-util -R -a tispl.bin -D <PATH_TO_BIN>/tispl.bin
HOST $ sudo dfu-util -R -a u-boot.img -D <PATH_TO_BIN>/u-boot.img
 
# At this point, the u-boot will start executing. Halt at the u-boot prompt (u-boot logs will appear on the MAIN UART 1st instance)
TARGET => env default -f -a
TARGET => setenv mmcdev 0
TARGET => setenv bootpart 0
TARGET => saveenv
TARGET => setenv dfu_alt_info ${dfu_alt_info_emmc}
 
# one time only per board
TARGET => gpt write mmc 0 ${partitions}
 
TARGET => dfu 0 mmc 0
 
# Flashing a tiny file system to eMMC User partition
HOST $ sudo dfu-util -l
HOST $ sudo dfu-util -a rootfs -D <PATH_TO_CREATED_TINYFS>/tisdk-tiny-image.img
 
#one time only per board, to give ROM access to the boot partition, the following commands must be used for the first time
TARGET => mmc partconf 0 1 1 1
TARGET => mmc bootbus 0 2 0 0

# Boot the board
TARGET => boot

4. Change bootmode to eMMC (boot) and boot the board.

Regards,

Karan

This way should be works, I will follow steps try it again

Karan, Thanks :)