Copy kernel image from host machine to target i.mx53 start board using usb to serial converter

[SyedRafiulHussa]

Hi,

I don't have any microSD card reader/writer. That's why I was wondering if it is possible to load my custom built kernel image to i.mx53 start board using serial communication. In this case, I would like to use a usb to serial converter to load the image. I would really appreciate if someone can give any suggestion for this.

Thanks in advance.

Syed Rafiul Hussain

[MarcusMaller]

You can also copy your kernel to the file system (/boot). With a modified start string U-Boot can load it from there. That way you can have several different kernels and you can simply copy them via NFS at runtime.

Marcus

[SyedRafiulHussa]

Thanks Mr. Poole and Mr. Eftimovski. Let me try with your suggestions. I shall get back to soon with the result.

[IvicaEftimovski]

Ahh, forgot, you can use the Mfg tool and connect your START board via USB cable to you computer running Windows and do replace the romfs and boot images that way.

[IvicaEftimovski]

I don’t think this is possible.

Assuming that you are overwriting an SD card that has ltib generated image and rootfs, you may be able to replace the contents of the rootfs by simply copying over using a network.  

You can also run an image from NFS as described in “i.MX SART Linux User’s Guide”. But again, you need a working U-boot on the SD card to do the NFS boot.

To make a SD card that is partitioned as it should and has U-boot (or preferred other boot-loader) you will need a card reader.

[DonaldR_PooleJr]

If you are on a Linux host, the microSD card in your USB-to-serial adapter should show up as /dev/sdX.  You can issue the mount command to see were your system mounted your microSD card.  Once, you have the /dev entry, you can issue the dd command (dd if=uImage of=/dev/sdX bs=512 seek=2 && sync && sync) to write your kernel image to the microSD card.