Linux early boot debug

[lpcware]

Content originally posted in LPCWare by MOHAMMAD BIYABANI on Thu Feb 28 03:28:50 MST 2013
Hi,
1. I am trying to setup the development environment for an New Board that contains (LPC3250) ARM9 controller,SDRAM(MT48LC32M16A2P) with memory size of 512Mbits and NAND FLASH.when I tried to cross-compile the kernel and load it on the board(inNAND FLASH),the console showing the message

Uncompressing Linux... done, booting the kernel

2.I thought that may be a problem in SDRAM configuration or initialization.so,i have changed the settings of SDRAM in dramconfig.h file.

Then also it is showing the same problem.
After that i follow the below steps
A.  Enabling Kernel Low Level Debugging ( CONFIG_DEBUG_LL )

    1.  In menuconfig search for 'Kernel Low Level Debugging'. ( To search in menuconfig: after make ARCH=.. CROSS_COMPILE=... menuconfig, press '/' sign.
    A dialouge box will appear. Type the string to be searched and press enter.)

    2.  This will show where the low level debugging option is and by what name will it be represented. Note down the path and also check all the dependencies.

    3.  Press EXIT. Select all the dependencies and the low level debugging option.

    4.  Save the configuration and exit.

Do not build the kernel Image (uImage) yet.

B.  Using early printks:

    1.  In your kernel source open kernel/printk.c using vim editor ( or any editor you prefer ). Add 'printascii' to the function vprintk in the following manner:


        extern void printascii(const char*);
      
        asmlinkage int vprintk(const char *fmt, va_list args)
        {
            int printed_len = 0;
            int current_log_level = default_message_loglevel;
            unsigned long flags;
            int this_cpu;
            char *p;

            .
            .
            .
            .


        /* Emit the output into the temporary buffer */
            printed_len += vscnprintf(printk_buf + printed_len,
                      sizeof(printk_buf) - printed_len, fmt, args);

            printascii(printk_buf);
          

            /*
             * Copy the output into log_buf.  If the caller didn't provide
             * appropriate log level tags, we insert them here
             */
            for (p = printk_buf; *p; p++) {
                if (new_text_line) {
                    /* If a token, set current_log_level and skip over */
                    if (p[0] == '<' && p[1] >= '0' && p[1] <= '7' &&
                        p[2] == '>') {
                        current_log_level = p[1] - '0';
                        p += 3;
                        printed_len -= 3;
                    }

             .
             .
             .



     2.  Save the file and exit. ( in vim press 'Esc' and the ':wq' and then 'Enter' to save and exit. )

     3.  Now build the kernel image. ( uImage )

     4.  On the u-boot prompt give the following command:

  
        $ setenv bootargs $(bootargs) earlyprintk=serial

         or simple add   'earlyprintk=serial'   to the bootargs.

C.  Save if desired and boot with the uImage formed above. You will get the prints even if the console is not initialized.
Then the console has displayed the message   

Uncompressing Linux... done, booting the kernel.                               
<5>Linux version 2.6.34 (root@biyabani) (gcc version 4.2.2) #5 PREEMPT Wed Feb 3
CPU: ARM926EJ-S [41069264] revision 4 (ARMv5TEJ), cr=00053177                  
CPU: VIVT data cache, VIVT instruction cache                                   
Machine: Future Designs board with the LPC3250 Microcontroller                 
Memory policy: ECC disabled, Data cache writeback                              
<7>On node 0 totalpages: 8192                                                  
<7>free_area_init_node: node 0, pgdat c0373fa0, node_mem_map c0393000          
<7>  Normal zone: 64 pages used for memmap                                     
<7>  Normal zone: 0 pages reserved                                             
<7>  Normal zone: 8128 pages, LIFO batch:0                                     
Built 1 zonelists in Zone order, mobility grouping on.  Total pages: 8128      
<5>Kernel command line: console=ttyTX0,115200n8 root=/dev/ram0 rw ip=192.168.1.0
<6>PID hash table entries: 128 (order: -3, 512 bytes)                          
<6>Dentry cache hash table entries: 4096 (order: 2, 16384 bytes)               
<6>Inode-cache hash table entries: 2048 (order: 1, 8192 bytes)                 
<6>Memory: 32MB = 32MB total                                                   
<5>Memory: 27188k/27188k available, 5580k reserved, 0K highmem                 
<5>Virtual kernel memory layout:                                               
    vector  : 0xffff0000 - 0xffff1000   (   4 kB)                              
    fixmap  : 0xfff00000 - 0xfffe0000   ( 896 kB)                              
    DMA     : 0xffc00000 - 0xffe00000   (   2 MB)                              
    vmalloc : 0xc2800000 - 0xf0000000   ( 728 MB)                              
    lowmem  : 0xc0000000 - 0xc2000000   (  32 MB)                              
    modules : 0xbf000000 - 0xc0000000   (  16 MB)                              
      .init : 0xc0008000 - 0xc0027000   ( 124 kB)                              
      .text : 0xc0027000 - 0xc0358000   (3268 kB)                              
      .data : 0xc0358000 - 0xc03745a0   ( 114 kB)                              
<6>Hierarchical RCU implementation.                                            
<6>NR_IRQS:96                                                                  
Console: colour dummy device 80x30                                             
<6>Calibrating delay loop... <c>133.12 BogoMIPS (lpj=665600)                   
Mount-cache hash table entries: 512                                            
<6>CPU: Testing write buffer coherency: ok                                     
<6>NET: Registered protocol family 16                                          
I did not understood anything from above message...
please if anybody know what is the problem then post it.
thank you