AM335x Porting Questions

[Ian Abbott]

On 07/12/16 23:01, Jonathan Stackhouse wrote:
> Hello Barebox Community!
>
> I'm attempting to port the Beaglebone board files
> (arch/arm/boards/beaglebone) to another similar board, but am having a bit
> of a hard time understanding what all I need to do.
>
> Is there a specific procedure that I should follow when porting barebox or
> is it merely making changes/additions to the files in
> arch/{ARCH}/boards/some-similar-board? I've read though the README in the
> barebox root directory as well as several of the docs in the Documentation
> folder and the online user manual but have not found the information I am
> looking for.

Having done something similar recently (but on socfpga, not am335x), the 
directories/files in question are:

  arch/${ARCH}/boards/Makefile
  arch/${ARCH}/boards/YOUR-BOARD/* (most of your source code here)
  arch/${ARCH}/mach-SOMETHING/Kconfig (or arch/${ARCH}/Kconfig for some 
${ARCH}s)
  arch/${ARCH}/configs/YOUR-BOARD_defconfig (optional)
  arch/${ARCH}/configs/YOUR-BOARD-xload_defconfig (optional)
  arch/${ARCH}/dts/Makefile (if ${ARCH} uses device-tree)
  arch/${ARCH}/dts/DTS-FOR-YOUR-BOARD.dts (if $(ARCH} uses device-tree)
  arch/${ARCH}/dts/OTHER-COMMON-DTS-STUFF.dtsi (optional, as required)
  images/Makefile.PICK-OR-CREATE-ONE
  images/Makefile (if you created a new images/Makefile.*)

You don't need the defconfig files if you only manage the configuration 
outside of barebox, unless the board is to be merged back into barebox 
upstream.

> Do the SPL/MLO and barebox.bin write any data to log files for debugging
> purposes? If so, how do I configure the builds for these logs and how do I
> access them? I'm asking because I noticed under Debugging in menuconfig that
> I can set the "default loglevel" but I don't know where the log gets stored,
> and I wanted to view it to see whether my MLO is working or not.

Logs go to the console, which is usually a serial port or a frame buffer.

> Additionally, I've attempted to get the MLO to initialize UART0 and UART2
> for debugging purposes, but can't seem to get the "MLO>" prompt to appear in
> PuTTY (settings are 115200, 8N1, no flow control). I have console support
> set to "full", Console activation strategy set to "activate first console on
> startup", low level debug messages enabled, and the OMAP Debug UART Port
> Selection set to 2. I also used the same UART initialization code that is in
> the beaglebone lowlevel.c file, with the exception that I set it up for
> UART2 instead of UART0. What else I need to do?

You might need to set the default baudrate to 115200 under "General 
Settings --> Default baudrate" in the barebox configurations for MLO and 
final-stage bootloader.

You may also need to do some work on your .dts files to mark &uart2 
status as "okay" and set up the pin muxing for uart2.

> I apologize for this rather broad and long email, but I've been battling
> this for quite some time and have finally decided to reach out for help.

Good luck!  I've never actually used barebox on any AM335x based boards 
(though I tinkered with u-boot a couple of years ago), and am a bit of a 
noob with barebox myself.

-- 
-=( Ian Abbott @ MEV Ltd.    E-mail: <abbotti at mev.co.uk> )=-
-=(                          Web: http://www.mev.co.uk/  )=-