Pogoplug Mobile Booting from SD.

[dhead666]

Hi.

With the help of Bodhi, I was able to successfully boot Arch Linux from sd card using Davy Gravy's U-Boot.
I just followed Bodhi's instructions with few changes,
I will attach my changes on the bottom,
keep in mind that I tried different settings before success,
so it possible that I made some changes that I don't recall,
I recommend you to have a look at my whole U-Boot settings.

I've successfully flashed:
1. Davy Gravy's U-Boot from the original Pogoplug Linux.
2. Arch Linux U-Boot on Davy Gravy's U-Boot. EDIT: Wrong, didn't worked.
3. Davy Gravy's U-Boot on Arch Linux U-Boot. EDIT: No, didn't done it because 2 didn't worked, but it should work.

Although I documented all the steps I made,
somehow in all my tries some arguments needed to manually set again,
so I decided not to publish here a guide because I don't want users bricking their devices.
I had no success in reverting to stock Pogoplug U-Boot, so I didn't tried the process again on a clean machine.

Anyway you can follow my steps on Doozan's forums and look at my U-Boot settings.
Davy Gravy's U-Boot: http://forum.doozan.com/read.php?3,7477
Bodhi's Instructions: http://forum.doozan.com/read.php?3,7477,10982#msg-10982
My U-Boot printenv: http://pastebin.com/6bKSVPrQ
My changes:
$this->bbcode_second_pass_code('', 'usb_rootfstype=ext3
mmc_boot=mw 0x800000 0 1; ext2load mmc 0:1 0x00800000 /boot/uImage; if ext2load mmc 0:1 0x01100000 /boot/uInitrd; then bootm 0x800000 0x1100000; else bootm 0x800000; fi
mmc_bootcmd=mmc init; mmc init; run mmc_set_bootargs; run mmc_boot
mmc_root=/dev/mmcblk0p1
mmc_set_bootargs=setenv bootargs console=$console root=$mmc_root rootdelay=$usb_rootdelay rootfstype=$usb_rootfstype $mtdparts $usb_custom_params
')

I still like to be able to revert to stock firmware, I would love to get some hints on the matter.

[dhead666]

Is it possible that I had failed to revert to stock (with Arch Linux U-Boot) because my mac changed ?

[dhead666]

Seems that Davy Gravy's U-Boot sits in an address before the Arch Linux U-Boot,
so flashing Arch Linux U-Boot won't work.

I though maybe the U-Boot isn't address aware so I flashed Arch Linux U-Boot in the same location of Davy Gravy's U-Boot,
well, that killed my Pogoplug, no serial, no netconsole, nothing.

I'm guessing the next step is flashing with jtag, I'll need to figure out the pinout, order a bus pirate (wait a month) and figure out how to use it.

Google was reluctant to give any hints on the matter, so any tips, links and guides are welcome.

[twinclouds]

@dhead666:
I used your changes of bodhi's original uboot setting. It also works for booting debian from SD/MMC slot. The results are summarized herehttp://forum.doozan.com/read.php?2,11663,11824#msg-11824. Thank you for your good work.

[dhead666]

@twinclouds,
I'm glad this is working for you.
Sadly this doesn't work for me with the latest linux-kirkwood 3.8.x kernel (works fine with the freezed 3.1.x kernel), I'm getting a wrong image error.
With 20$ price tag I was planning to use it as a pvr server and give few to friend and family, so a recent kernel with updated dvb driver is a must.
I'm really not sure who to blame, Davy's uBoot or the uImage.
I can boot linux-kirkwood 3.8.x kernel from usb but not from sd.
Sd booting worked with a previous version of linux-kirkwood kernel so I'm guessing that maybe this could be fix from the kernel side, but this is a big guess, and only the devlopers could give a proper answer to that.

[dhead666]

This uboot is just a mad cow !
The best way to solve this is to put the uImage on a seperate ext2 folder (and of course add a fstab entry).