[Gta04-owner] Can't boot QtMoko or SHR with current makesd script

[Dr. H. Nikolaus Schaller]

Am 21.02.2013 um 20:30 schrieb Neil Jerram:

> Neil Jerram <neil at ossau.homelinux.net> writes:
> 
>>> After this step the GTA04 should boot into LXDE w/o SD card.
>> 
>> Yes, it does, hooray.
>> 
>> And I can now boot my old QtMoko card too.  Great!
>> 
>> Next I'll move on to trying the new QtMoko/SHR card, but I don't have
>> time for that right now.
> 
> I have re-prepared my new QtMoko/SHR card from scratch like this:
> 
>  Command (m for help): p
> 
>  Disk /dev/sdb: 15.9 GB, 15931539456 bytes
>  64 heads, 32 sectors/track, 15193 cylinders, total 31116288 sectors
>  Units = sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes
>  Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
>  I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
>  Disk identifier: 0x00000000
> 
>     Device Boot      Start         End      Blocks   Id  System
>  /dev/sdb1            2048     4196351     2097152   83  Linux
>  /dev/sdb2         4196352     8390655     2097152   83  Linux
>  /dev/sdb3         8390656    12584959     2097152   83  Linux
>  /dev/sdb4        12584960    31116287     9265664    5  Extended
>  /dev/sdb5        12587008    31116287     9264640    c  W95 FAT32 (LBA)
> 
>  # mkfs.ext3 /dev/sdb1
>  # mkfs.ext3 /dev/sdb2
>  # mkfs.ext3 /dev/sdb3
>  # mkfs.vfat /dev/sdb5
>  # mount /dev/sdb1 /mnt
>  # cd /mnt
>  # tar zxvpf ~neil/Downloads/shr-image-om-gta04.tar.gz --numeric-owner
>  # umount /mnt
>  # mount /dev/sdb2 /mnt
>  # cd /mnt
>  # tar zxvpf ~neil/Downloads/qtmoko-debian-gta04-v52-armhf.tar.gz
>  # umount /mnt
> 
> Powering on with this card, I find that the boot system seems to go into
> a loop: a repeating cycle of white, yellow, big Tux and blank screens.

The best method to debug this would be to see the console output (needs
RS232 cable).

> 
> If I now press and hold AUX, after a while I see instead a boot menu
> screen.  But not the one that I was expecting!  The boot menu that I see
> looks like this:
> 
> +--------+   +--------+
> |        |   |        |
> | Mirror |   | Blink  |
> |        |   |  LEDs  |
> +--------+   +--------+
> +--------+   +--------+
> | [tux]  |   |        |
> |        |   |  DVI   |
> |  Boot  |   |        |
> +--------+   +--------+
> +--------+   +--------+
> |        |   |        |
> |  NAND  |   |  MMC   |
> |        |   |        |
> +--------+   +--------+

This is an old one. It was changed a while ago (Oct 2012).

> 
> What can be the explanation of that?  (Given my previous preparation and
> apparently successful use of
> http://download.goldelico.com/gta04/20121212-GTA04-Production/makesd and
> "./flash-nand".)
> 
> I noticed this in the flash-nand source code
> (http://git.goldelico.com/?p=gta04-rootfs.git;a=blob;f=debian/config/root/flash-nand):
> 
>  # DEFAULT="-x -b -k -j" ### we can't write X-Loader yet
>  DEFAULT="-k -j"

Yes, only U-Boot can flash X-Loader and uboot.flash into NAND.

> Could the problem be that there is still something odd sitting in my
> X-Loader NAND block?
> 
> Could it be that booting my _old_ QtMoko card reinstalled the above old
> boot menu?

Yes. This is the most likely explanation since there is only room for one
image file in NAND.

Just boot again with the /20121212-GTA04-Production SD and it should
switch forth to the newest one (Kernel and jffs2 are not touched).

In the long run you should only have at most one SD card with U-Boot/MLO
etc. in a FAT partition to reinstall/recover the boot loader. All other SD
cards should not have this.

Nikolaus