Angstrom Woes on Rev. C4 (kernel panic)

Hi guys,

I'm hoping to 1) get some clarification for proper procedures for SD
formatting and running Angstrom, and 2) ideas for fixing the kernel
panic error.

My setup:
- SD card 8GB Kingston
- Beagleboard: Rev. C4 (BB*)
- Host PC: Ubuntu 11.04
- Beagleboard powered through USB OTG
- LCD display hooked up to Beagleboard (HDMI)
- Serial output via MiniCom (IDC10 to DB9 to Null Modem)

I spent a couple of days trying things from various instructions
guides, but couldn't find anything that would boot to Angstrom. I
think that there were issues with outdated mmc commands being called.
I kept getting:
Hit any key to stop autoboot: 0
mmc - MMC sub system
Usage:
mmc read addr blk# cnt

Anyway, I came to the conclusion that I should try with a fresh start.
Here's what I did:

1. Cleared NAND with 'nand erase'. BB booted to 40W with some wingding-
type characters.
2. Couldn't boot off SD Card by holding input button, so I connected
to the BB through UART following instructions here: http://elinux.org/BeagleBoardRecovery
3. Flashed U-boot and X-loader to NAND with instructions here:
http://elinux.org/BeagleBoardUbuntu#Upgrade_X-loader_and_U-boot
4. Formatted SD card as per: http://code.google.com/p/beagleboard/wiki/LinuxBootDiskFormat
(used FAT32 and entered 51 for end of first partition)
5. Copied MLO and u-boot.bin from http://www.angstrom-distribution.org/demo/beagleboard/
to first partition of SD card.
6. Extracted Angstrom*bz2 and modules*tgz to the second partition of
the SD card.
7. Inserted SD card into BB and powered up the card. All I saw was:
Starting kernel ...
Uncompressing
Linux...............................................................................
8. I changed 'console=tty2,115200n8' to 'console=ttyS2,115200n8' in U-
boot and was able to see more print-outs while uncompressing Linux.
The last line is: [ 12.172271] Kernel panic - not syncing: Fatal
exception in interrupt (Full set of lines at end of this post). The
monitor displayed a black screen with a beagleboard banner.

---> Based on a search, it seems this may be caused by 1) using power
through the USB OTG and/or 2) a conflict in loader, distro, etc. I got
all the files from the angstrom-distribution site, so I suspect it's
the power issue, but I wanted to make sure the rest of my steps were
okay. Are they?

---> I also want to plug a mouse and keyboard into the BB, and was
thinking of getting this from Special Computing:
https://specialcomp.com/beagleboard/DSCN0394.JPG Any known issues
(kernel panic, insufficient power, keyboard/mouse conflicts, etc) with
this device?

---> Also, is this cause for concern?: (I do eventually want to send
I2C commands)
timed out in wait_for_pin: I2C_STAT=0
I2C read: I/O error

Thanks!

http://www.angstrom-distribution.org/demo/beagleboard answers all that and more

Certainly try a power supply into the 5V jack. I personally chose one that I had from a TI DSK board and it got over the sync panic no problems. Then go from there because on cursory inspection your SD MMC card preparation looks fine.

Thanks for the responses. I ended up trying the cpuidle uImages
because there is report of I2C commands being unavailable with a 5V
power supply***. The one with *gether worked as advertised.

What about the 'wait_for_pin' error? Is it normal?
timed out in wait_for_pin: I2C_STAT=0
I2C read: I/O error

Trying to get ethernet connectivity for my BB to test the I2C
commands. I have several USB wireless ethernet devices at my disposal.
The manual says to use the USB-OTG port. Since I'm currently using
that port for power, is there any reason not to use the USB Host port?

*** http://e2e.ti.com/support/dlp__mems_micro-electro-mechanical_systems/f/94/p/62015/224305.aspx#224305