topic Re: Cannot Boot from SD Card with Linux and i.MX6 SABRE in i.MX Processors

Cannot Boot from SD Card with Linux and i.MX6 SABRE

kriszawada — Fri, 24 Jul 2015 14:39:33 GMT

I cannot figure out why the SABRE board does not boot from the SD Card when I put Linux on it.

I have been following the document named i.MX_6Dual6Quad_Sabre-AI_Linux_User's_Guide.pdf. I've attached it at well. The instructions are actually listed under "Chapter 8 Using a Linux Host to Set Up an SD/MMC Card".

The steps I followed are the following:

1) Got a new 8 GB Micro SD with SD Adapter

2) Plugged card into a Ubuntu desktop machine (Ubuntu 12.04.3 LTS) and plugged the card into the slot. The card is recognized as '/dev/sdb'.

3) Next, I called umount '/dev/sdb' to ensure that I could modify the partitions (NOTE: '/dev/sdb1' or '/dev/sdb2', etc.. were not mounted).

4) Executed command to write the bootloader binary image to disk (SD Card):

sudo dd if=/home/user/Downloads/L3.0.35_4.1.0_130816_images_MX6/u-boot-mx6dl-sabreauto.bin of=/dev/sdb bs=512 seek=2 skip=2 conv=fsync

5) Executed command to copy the Linux OS image to disk (SD card):

sudo dd if=/home/user/Downloads/L3.0.35_4.1.0_130816_images_MX6/uImage of=/dev/sdb bs=512 conv=fsync

6) Setup partitioning on the SD card by calling

sudo fdisk /dev/sdb

6-a) Enter the 'u' key until terminal shows it has switched to sectors instead of cylinders ("Changing display/entry units to cylinders (DEPRECATED!)" -> "Changing display/entry units to sectors").

6-b) Enter the 'd' key until the terminal shows there are no more partitions ("No partition is defined yet!").

6-c) Enter the 'n' key to create a partition.

6-d) Enter the 'p' key to create a primary partition.

Partition type:

p primary (0 primary, 0 extended, 4 free)

e extended

Select (default p):

6-e) Enter the '1' key to specify that it is the first partition.

Partition number (1-4, default 1):

6-f) Specify 16384 for the first sector offset.

First sector (2048-15564799, default 2048):

6-g) Nest, press the enter key to take the default value.

Last sector, +sector or +size{K,M,G} (16384-15564799, default 15564799):

6-h) Press the 'w' key to write the partition table to SD card and exit the fdisk application.

7) Format the newly created partition using the following command:

sudo mkfs.ext4 /dev/sdb1

8) Create a new directory.

mkdir /home/user/mountpoint

9) Mount the new partition to that directory:

sudo mount /dev/sdb1 /home/user/mountpoint

10) Unzip the root file system compressed file

gunzip /home/user/Downloads/L3.0.35_4.1.0_130816_images_MX6/rootfs.ext2.gz

11) Create a new directory:

mkdir /home/user/rootfs

12) Mount the uncompressed root file system to the directory

sudo mount -o loop -t ext2 /home/user/Downloads/L3.0.35_4.1.0_130816_images_MX6/rootfs.ext2 /home/user/rootfs

13) Enter the newly created directory and with new mount point.

cd /home/user/rootfs

14) Copy the file system contents to the new partition.

sudo cp -a * /home/kzawada/mountpoint

15) Dismount the SD card partition and give it a little bit of time to finish writing all the data.

sudo umount /home/kzawada/mountpoint

16) Unplug the SD Card once writing is finished and plug in to Freescale SABRE i.MX6 Series board.

17) Plug-in the USB Cable for debug and setup a terminal.

18) Plug in the power cord.

19) Press the reset button.

At this point there is no response at all on the debug board or indication the LCD screen that something is happening.

I am able to boot from an SD card that contains Android and Windows Embedded Compact 7 on the same board. This leads me to believe that the way the the SD card is written (MBR, partitions, etc...) is incorrect and the board cannot boot from this SD card.

What could be wrong with the procedure of programming the SD card?

Re: Cannot Boot from SD Card with Linux and i.MX6 SABRE

kriszawada — Fri, 24 Jul 2015 15:05:09 GMT

I changed the first command to be:

sudo dd if=u-boot-mx6q-sabresd.bin of=/dev/sdb bs=512 seek=2 skip=2 conv=fsync

Mainly because I am using the SABRE-SD and not the SABRE-AI (Automotive) board. Still the same outcome. Nothing is happening and no debug output over USB-to-UART.

Re: Cannot Boot from SD Card with Linux and i.MX6 SABRE

Yuri — Mon, 27 Jul 2015 02:21:42 GMT

1.
Under items 4) and 5) – looks like – “u-boot-mx6dl-sabreauto.bin” is rewritten
by uImage, assuming uImage size if greater than (512 x 2) bytes.

So, please try at first to write and boot only U-boot.

2.
It makes sense to use the recent Linux BSP (L3.14.28) for i.MX6, please refer

to the following Web.

http://www.freescale.com/webapp/sps/site/prod_summary.jsp?code=IMX6_SW

http://www.freescale.com/webapp/Download?colCode=L3.14.28_1.0.0_iMX6QDLS_BUNDLE

For the SABRE-SD You may use SD demo images (.sdcard fime extention), such as
"fsl-image-qt5-x11-imx6qdlsolo.sdcard".

Please use the next Linux command to deploy it to SD card :

$ sudo dd if= fsl-image-qt5-x11-imx6qdlsolo.sdcard of=/dev/sdb bs=1M

Have a great day,
Yuri

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Re: Cannot Boot from SD Card with Linux and i.MX6 SABRE

kriszawada — Mon, 27 Jul 2015 14:06:05 GMT

Yuri, thanks for your feedback. Finally, got something working.

I tried just programming u-boot using the following command:

user_name@computer:~$ sudo dd if=/home/user_name/Downloads/L3.0.35_4.1.0_130816_images_MX6/u-boot-mx6q-sabreauto.bin of=/dev/sdb bs=512 seek=2 conv=fsync

332+1 records in

332+1 records out

170220 bytes (170 kB) copied, 0.114487 s, 1.5 MB/s

user_name@computer:~$

user_name@computer:~$ sudo dd if=/home/user_name/Downloads/L3.0.35_4.1.0_130816_images_MX6/u-boot-mx6dl-sabreauto.bin of=/dev/sdb bs=512 seek=2 conv=fsync

316+1 records in

316+1 records out

162280 bytes (162 kB) copied, 0.06722 s, 2.4 MB/s

user_name@computer:~$

However, still no response from the USB-to-serial debug port. Also, nothing on the LCD (via LVDS) screen either.

The great news is that writing the entire SD Card image worked great.

user_name@computer:~$ sudo dd if=/home/user_name/Downloads/fsl-L3.14.28_1.0.0_iMX6qdls_Bundle/L3.14.28_1.0.0_ga_images_MX6/fsl-image-qt5-x11-imx6qdlsolo.sdcard of=/dev/sdb bs=1M

[sudo] password for user:

1444+0 records in

1444+0 records out

1514143744 bytes (1.5 GB) copied, 69.1884 s, 21.9 MB/s

user_name@computer:~$

I can definitely work with that and move forward.

Still makes me wonder why the following the Freescale instructions does not work to simply program the SD card and see Linux boot.

Re: Cannot Boot from SD Card with Linux and i.MX6 SABRE

Yuri — Tue, 28 Jul 2015 06:11:07 GMT

Please try to use U-boot for SABRE-SD (not sabreauto).

Regards,

Yuri.

Re: Cannot Boot from SD Card with Linux and i.MX6 SABRE

kriszawada — Tue, 28 Jul 2015 14:59:16 GMT

I see what you mean by overwriting uboot with uImage. I was missing a command line parameter (seek=2048):

sudo dd if=uImage of=/dev/sdb bs=512 conv=fsync
sudo dd if=uImage of=/dev/sdb bs=512 seek=2048 conv=fsync

Now, after just programing uboot as suggested:

user_name@computer:~$ sudo dd if=/home/user_name/Downloads/L3.0.35_4.1.0_130816_images_MX6/u-boot-mx6q-sabresd.bin of=/dev/sdb bs=512 seek=2 skip=2 conv=fsync

841+1 records in

841+1 records out

430672 bytes (431 kB) copied, 0.178134 s, 2.4 MB/s

user_name@computer:~$

It worked, I saw the board boot up using uboot. I decided to follow the remainder of the steps and program uImage as well as create a partition and fill it with data.

user_name@computer:~$ sudo dd if=/home/user_name/Downloads/L3.0.35_4.1.0_130816_images_MX6/uImage of=/dev/sdb bs=512 seek=2048 conv=fsync

7551+1 records in

7551+1 records out

3866508 bytes (3.9 MB) copied, 1.16317 s, 3.3 MB/s

user_name@computer:~$

I was able to boot up and uboot showed it was trying to get an image using TFTP.

Therefore, in the terminal executed the following commands (used LVDS0 for the display):

setenv loadaddr 0x10800000

setenv bootargs_base 'setenv bootargs console=ttymxc0,115200'

setenv bootargs_mmc 'setenv bootargs ${bootargs} root=/dev/mmcblk1p1 rootwait rw video=mxcfb0:dev=ldb,LDB-XGA,if=RGB666'

setenv bootcmd_mmc 'run bootargs_base bootargs_mmc;mmc dev 2;mmc read ${loadaddr} 0x800 0x2000;bootm'

setenv bootcmd 'run bootcmd_mmc'

saveenv

run bootcmd

This made the LCD show the BusyBox GUI which was great.

I ran into a couple of items which I saw were not working:

- The keyboard would not work in the BusyBox terminal, but the mouse worked.

- Could not login to the debug terminal.

freescale login: linaro

Password:

freescale login:

Otherwise, really happy that it booted Linux.

Re: Cannot Boot from SD Card with Linux and i.MX6 SABRE

Yuri — Wed, 29 Jul 2015 05:55:51 GMT

You may try login "root" (with empty password).

Regards,

Yuri.

Re: Cannot Boot from SD Card with Linux and i.MX6 SABRE

kriszawada — Thu, 30 Jul 2015 19:23:16 GMT

Thanks Yuri.

You are right for BusyBox the login with "root" (with empty password) works great.

I also attached my terminal output for anyone else that is searching this forum.

Re: Cannot Boot from SD Card with Linux and i.MX6 SABRE

kriszawada — Wed, 05 Aug 2015 15:43:09 GMT

Yuri,

Is there anyway to determine which options 'fsl-image-qt5-x11-imx6qdlsolo.sdcard' was built with?

Was it built with the following:

$ MACHINE=imx6qsabresd source fsl-setup-release.sh -b build-x11 -e x11

$ bitbake fsl-image-gt5

How can I determine this? Is there a way to search in the image to determine this?

Re: Cannot Boot from SD Card with Linux and i.MX6 SABRE

Yuri — Thu, 06 Aug 2015 04:12:08 GMT

Hello !

I think it would be reasonable to create new thread regarding demo images creation.

(I have no answer right now, but the topic is intersting)

Regards,

Yuri.

Re: Cannot Boot from SD Card with Linux and i.MX6 SABRE

luea — Wed, 26 Aug 2015 07:06:03 GMT

Hi!why I can't get the u-Boot-mx6q-sabreauto.bin ,how did you get it?Hope to your repsponse.

Re: Cannot Boot from SD Card with Linux and i.MX6 SABRE

kriszawada — Tue, 01 Sep 2015 13:35:34 GMT

Which development hardware are you using?

MCIMX6Q-SDB

MCIMX6Q-SDP

MCIMX6DL-SDP

MCIMX6SX-SDB

Re: Cannot Boot from SD Card with Linux and i.MX6 SABRE

luea — Wed, 02 Sep 2015 03:36:59 GMT

Hi ,I am using MCIMX6Q-SDP,and I found that.Thank you for your response!

Re: Cannot Boot from SD Card with Linux and i.MX6 SABRE

luea — Fri, 04 Sep 2015 13:00:17 GMT

where can I enter these commands,in HyperTerminal ??? or something else???
I am using MCIMX6Q-SDP,,

Re: Cannot Boot from SD Card with Linux and i.MX6 SABRE

kriszawada — Fri, 04 Sep 2015 15:12:03 GMT

Yep, you can use one of many terminal emulator programs (HyperTerminal, TerraTerm, Putty, or many others). There is a USB cable to connect for debug and terminal emulation on the MCIMX6Q-SDP board (MCIMX6DL-SDP Freescale Semiconductor | MCIMX6DL-SDP-ND | DigiKey ).

In my instance, once I programmed MCIMX6Q-SDP with 'fsl-L3.14.28_1.0.0_iMX6qdls_Bundle/L3.14.28_1.0.0_ga_images_MX6/fsl-image-qt5-x11-imx6qdlsolo.sdcard', I did not need to set any of the parameters with a terminal. It just booted and the GUI was displayed.

Re: Cannot Boot from SD Card with Linux and i.MX6 SABRE

luea — Sat, 05 Sep 2015 05:05:35 GMT

You mean that I can enter these commands in hyper terminal,right ? I want to try this first,if can not ,I will try you method. Thank you!

Re: Cannot Boot from SD Card with Linux and i.MX6 SABRE

kriszawada — Tue, 08 Sep 2015 13:37:51 GMT

Yes, you can do that through debug terminal. In case you use HyperTerminal then so be it.

Re: Cannot Boot from SD Card with Linux and i.MX6 SABRE

luea — Wed, 09 Sep 2015 06:45:44 GMT

Thank you very much!I was be able to set up the board using your method with 'fsl-L3.14.28_1.0.0_iMX6qdls_Bundle/L3.14.28_1.0.0_ga_images_MX6/fsl-image-qt5-x11-imx6qdlsolo.sdcard'!but if I want to patch AVB kernel in the uImage,can I use 'fsl-L3.14.28_1.0.0_iMX6qdls_Bundle/L3.14.28_1.0.0_ga_images_MX6/fsl-image-qt5-x11-imx6qdlsolo.sdcard', if so,would you attach some documents or material？Thank you!

Re: Cannot Boot from SD Card with Linux and i.MX6 SABRE

kriszawada — Wed, 09 Sep 2015 13:54:40 GMT

Create a new thread for this.

Re: Cannot Boot from SD Card with Linux and i.MX6 SABRE

luea — Sat, 12 Sep 2015 06:27:10 GMT

sorry，I don't understand what you mean,would you please explain more specificly!Thank you !