PandaBoard: Serial Port login support

[embeddedtim]

I've scoured this site and google...

I'm booting a root fs from my SD card with just the serial port connected. The serial port output shows what appears to be the correct boot sequence.

Am I supposed to be prompted with a login prompt??

Included is my serial output... thanks in advance!!


$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', ':'): Mounting Root Read-Only [BUSY] [DONE]
:: Starting UDev Daemon [BUSY] [DONE]
:: Triggering UDev uevents [BUSY] [DONE]
:: Waiting for UDev uevents to be processed [BUSY] [DONE]
:: Bringing up loopback interface [BUSY] [DONE]
:: Checking Filesystems [BUSY] [DONE]
:: Mounting Local Filesystems [BUSY] [DONE]
:: Activating Swap [BUSY] [DONE]
:: Configuring Time Zone [BUSY] [DONE]
:: Removing Leftover Files [BUSY] [DONE]
:: Setting Hostname: alarm [BUSY] [DONE]
:: Setting Locale: en_US.UTF-8 [BUSY] [DONE]
:: Setting Consoles to UTF-8 mode [BUSY] G [DONE]
:: Loading Keyboard Map: us [BUSY] [DONE]
INIT: Entering runlevel: 3
:: Adjusting Hardware Clock [BUSY] [DONE]
:: Setting System Clock [BUSY] [DONE]
:: Starting Syslog-NG [BUSY] [DONE]
:: Starting Network [BUSY] [DONE]
:: Mounting Network Filesystems [BUSY] [DONE]
:: Starting crond daemon [BUSY] [DONE]
INIT: Id "s0" respawning too fast: disabled for 5 minutes

[kmihelich]

Are you using our latest omap-smp rootfs?

[embeddedtim]

Yep - just downloaded it from the Developers->Downloads section today

[kmihelich]

Looks like the wrong files got into the rootfs somehow.

You need to change instances of ttyS0 to ttyO2 (capital letter o, 2) in /etc/inittab and /etc/securetty

In /etc/inittab change:
s0:12345:respawn:/sbin/agetty -8 -s 115200 ttyS0 linux
to:
s0:12345:respawn:/sbin/agetty -8 -s 115200 ttyO2 linux

In /etc/securetty change:
ttyS0
to:
ttyO2

You should be able to perform these actions from another linux box. I'll get it changed in the rootfs though.

[embeddedtim]

Awesome!!

Another quick question... I noticed there is a "*** Warning - bad CRC" in the boot as shown below. Is this bad??

Thanks again!

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'T')exas Instruments X-Loader 1.41 (Oct 15 2010 - 20:28:09)
Starting OS Bootloader from MMC/SD1 ...


U-Boot 2010.09 (Oct 15 2010 - 12:09:16)

CPU : OMAP4430
Board: OMAP4 Panda
I2C: ready
DRAM: 1 GiB
MMC: OMAP SD/MMC: 0
Using default environment

*** Warning - bad CRC, using default environment

In: serial
Out: serial
Err: serial
Hit any key to stop autoboot: 0
reading boot.scr

253 bytes read
Running bootscript from mmc0 ...
## Executing script at 82000000
reading uImage

4505248 bytes read
Booting from mmc0 ...
## Booting kernel from Legacy Image at 80300000 ...
Image Name: Linux-2.6.39-ARCH
Image Type: ARM Linux Kernel Image (uncompressed)
Data Size: 4505184 Bytes = 4.3 MiB
Load Address: 80008000
Entry Point: 80008000
Verifying Checksum ... OK
Loading Kernel Image ... OK
OK

Starting kernel ...

[kmihelich]

Nope, not bad. It's basically just failing to check the NAND, which doesn't exist on a panda.

[embeddedtim]

Ah, makes sense... final boot question:
When escaping into u-boot, if I hand-jam the u-boot lines shown here (http://archlinuxarm.org/platforms/armv7/pandaboard), u-boot doesn't know what I'm talking about.

Is this normal??
Thanks!!

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'T')exas Instruments X-Loader 1.41 (Oct 15 2010 - 20:28:09)
Starting OS Bootloader from MMC/SD1 ...


U-Boot 2010.09 (Oct 15 2010 - 12:09:16)

CPU : OMAP4430
Board: OMAP4 Panda
I2C: ready
DRAM: 1 GiB
MMC: OMAP SD/MMC: 0
Using default environment

*** Warning - bad CRC, using default environment

In: serial
Out: serial
Err: serial
Hit any key to stop autoboot: 0
Panda # fatload mmc 0 0x80300000 uImage
MMC: block number 0x1 exceeds max(0x0)** Can't read from device 0 **

** Unable to use mmc 0:1 for fatload **
Panda #

[kmihelich]

Might be fat-fingering something. You really shouldn't need to hand-type anything, that's the purpose of having the boot.scr. Otherwise, the same lines that go into the boot.scr should work one-by-one on the u-boot prompt.

[embeddedtim]

Hmm.... also looks like I'm getting massive amounts of binary data right after:

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'S')tarting kernel ...

Uncompressing Linux... done, booting the kernel.

[kmihelich]

If it's garbage you're talking about.. random letters, special characters, the like.. you probably have your terminal set incorrectly or are not passing the correct serial arguments to the kernel at boot. Garbage is a sure sign that your serial rate is off somewhere.