[U-Boot] having trouble booting a simple kernel on a TQM860 board

[Robert P. J. Day <rpjday@crashcourse.ca>]

  (since it's been a while since i've had to mess with u-boot, it is
entirely possible that i'm doing something amazingly dumb but here we
go.)

  i've got two different types of PPC boards in front of me -- some
lite5200's and some tqm860's -- and all i want to do is verify that i
can build a kernel for each, TFTP it down to the board and boot that
kernel.  i don't care that it will fall over when it tries to mount a
root filesystem, i just want to see the early kernel boot output to
verify that at least that part of the process is working.

  i'm using the 2.6.37 kernel for both and while the lite5200s have a
fairly new version of u-boot (2010.12), the TQMs have an ancient
version (0.4.0, possibly slightly newer), and i have no freedom to
update those so don't even make the suggestion.  i just have to live
with that.

  the lite5200s are no problem.  with them, i just:

  $ make ARCH=powerpc 52xx/lite5200b_defconfig
  $ make ARCH=powerpc

and eventually, i get arch/powerpc/boot/cuImage.lite5200, download
that and go.  so the lite5200s are not an issue.

  with the tqm860's, i'm following some documentation that was given
to me that allegedly has worked in the past, so i run:

  $ make ARCH=powerpc tqm8xx_defconfig
  $ make ARCH=powerpc uImage

what i get in arch/powerpc/boot is:

$ file uImage
uImage: u-boot legacy uImage, Linux-2.6.37, Linux/PowerPC, OS Kernel
Image (gzip), 1301506 bytes, Fri Dec  2 18:08:06 2011, Load Address:
0x00000000, Entry Point: 0x00000000, Header CRC: 0x476FD0BD, Data CRC:
0xE355BE2A
$ $ mkimage -l uImage
Image Name:   Linux-2.6.37
Created:      Fri Dec  2 18:08:06 2011
Image Type:   PowerPC Linux Kernel Image (gzip compressed)
Data Size:    1301506 Bytes = 1271.00 kB = 1.24 MB
Load Address: 00000000
Entry Point:  00000000

which *seems* all right, but i'm not a powerpc expert.  so i copy this
to the TFTP dir under the name "uImage.tqm860", and on the board:

=> tftp 400000 uImage.tqm860
TFTP from server 192.168.202.100; our IP address is 192.168.202.79
Filename 'uImage.tqm860'.
Load address: 0x400000
Loading:
... snip ...
done
Bytes transferred = 1301570 (13dc42 hex)
=>

  i can check that the download worked:

=> imi 400000

## Checking Image at 00400000 ...
   Image Name:   Linux-2.6.37
   Created:      2011-12-02  23:08:06 UTC
   Image Type:   PowerPC Linux Kernel Image (gzip compressed)
   Data Size:    1301506 Bytes =  1.2 MB
   Load Address: 00000000
   Entry Point:  00000000
   Verifying Checksum ... OK
=>

  and, at this point, i would think that all i need to do is:

=> bootm 400000
## Booting image at 00400000 ...
   Image Name:   Linux-2.6.37
   Created:      2011-12-02  23:08:06 UTC
   Image Type:   PowerPC Linux Kernel Image (gzip compressed)
   Data Size:    1301506 Bytes =  1.2 MB
   Load Address: 00000000
   Entry Point:  00000000
   Verifying Checksum ... OK
   Uncompressing Kernel Image ... OK

and that's where it hangs.

  i have no idea if it's still booting properly but i've simply
screwed up the serial port setting.

  does this set of steps look reasonable?  the configuration, the
building, the TFTP, the verification steps, the "bootm" command?  this
is what's printed when the board resets:

U-Boot 0.4.0 (Apr 13 2004 - 15:01:22)

CPU:   XPC860xxZPnnD4 at 80 MHz: 16 kB I-Cache 8 kB D-Cache FEC
present
Board: TQM860LDB0A3-P80.208
DRAM:  16 MB
FLASH:  8 MB
In:    serial
Out:   serial
Err:   serial
Net:   SCC ETHERNET [PRIME], FEC ETHERNET
PCMCIA:   No Card found

  am i just missing something obvious?  what should i use for the
kernel console setting?  i'm open to suggestions.

rday

-- 

========================================================================
Robert P. J. Day                                 Ottawa, Ontario, CANADA
                        http://crashcourse.ca

Twitter:                                       http://twitter.com/rpjday
LinkedIn:                               http://ca.linkedin.com/in/rpjday
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