USER button does not work & PC->Beagle does not function

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1

Issue #1: Pressing the USER button + RESET does not trigger MMC/SD
boot.
I followed instructions to format SD using HP utility and copied files
in the exact order.
I have read the FAQ and did not see anyone report this issue.

Issue #2: I can see messages displayed on TeraTerm; but can not type
on TeraTerm (errata #8??); I have read the discussion board and
followed the instructions without any luck.

BeagleBoard: Rev B5.

Here is what I see in TeraTerm window:

Texas Instruments X-Loader 1.41
Starting OS Bootloader...

U-Boot 1.3.3 (Jul 10 2008 - 16:33:09)

OMAP3530-GP rev 2, CPU-OPP2 L3-165MHz
OMAP3 Beagle Board + LPDDR/NAND
DRAM: 128 MB
NAND: 256 MiB
In: serial
Out: serial
Err: serial
Audio Tone on Speakers ... complete
OMAP3 beagleboard.org #

2

Make sure you hold the user button down while releasing the reset. Do not release them at the same time.

The window shows that you are booting from NAND.

Gerald

3

My understanding is that it is absolutely necessary that MLO start in
the first sector of the FAT32 partition. What has worked best for me
is to reformat the FAT32 partition using Windows before copying MLO, u-
boot.bin, and uImage.
What I think has happened to me is that formatting the FAT32 partition
under Kubuntu Linux (sudo mkfs.msdos -F 32 /dev/sdb1 -n LABEL) added
standard directories "." and ".." at the beginning of the partition so
that when I copied MLO it did not end up at the beginning.

4

I've got a B5 board with a working Angstrom 20080823 dual partitioned
SD setup and I've seen no console information showing the USER button
doing anything in the boot sequence.

To boot the SD I set this in the console environment:
setenv bootcmd 'mmcinit;fatload mmc 0 0x80300000 uImage;fatload mmc 0
0x81600000;bootm 0x80300000';

and then this line from the Angstrom README.txt file which also saves
all the env stuff to NAND:
setenv bootargs 'console=ttyS2,115200n8 console=tty0 root=/dev/
mmcblk0p2 rootdelay=2 rootfstype=ext3 video=omapfb:vram:2M,vram:4M' ;
saveenv ; boot

My Beagleboard now boots right into Angstrom from the SD card after a
reset or power-on.
Here's the README.txt file I was mentioning:
http://www.angstrom-distribution.org/demo/beagleboard/README.txt

As far as the console not taking your input, it is probably either
your terminal settings or the RX line on your cable is a problem so
the Beagleboard Rs232 isn't receiving your outgoing terminal data.

5

It has also been my experience (with a B4 board) that doesn't seem to
matter whether I boot Ångström using NAND u-boot or SD/MMC u-boot. My
understanding is that the Linux kernel in uImage contains everything
Ångström
needs, so it really doesn't matter which MLO and u-boot.bin it uses.

Now, if you manage to destroy your NAND MLO or u-boot.bin, then you'll
need SD to recover.

6

Actually, it does matter. All TI provides uboots and MLO are pretty
flaky. I haven't seen any (re)boot problems since switching to
sakomans versions, which is to be expected, since that tree gets all
the bugfixes that are reviewed on this list.

regards,

Koen

7

Thanks Koen, that makes sense. Since I normally shut down at the end
of an Ångström session rather than rebooting, I haven't seen much
difference.