[ECOS] How useful CygMon can be?

[ECOS] How useful CygMon can be?

[Cristiano Ligieri Pereira]

Hi all,

I have a Intel XScale based board (80200EVB aka LRH) and Cygmon source
code for this board. The board comes with Cygmon image in it. I have two
questions:

1. Is it possible to use cygmon to load an eCos application since GDB
stubs is implemented in it? (from previous messages I understand that
RedBoot replaced Cygmon, which is deprecated, but in this case I don't
have Redboot and need to get eCos running on the Board as quick as
possible)

2. How can I use Cygmon source code to speed up porting RedBoot in the
case I cannot use Cygmon to load an application? As far as I understand
all the initialization code can be reused as well as the GDB stubs
routines. What else? 

Thanks,
Cristiano.

------------------------------------------------------------
Cristiano Ligieri Pereira - http://www.ics.uci.edu/~cpereira

Re: [ECOS] How useful CygMon can be?

[Mark Salter]

>>>>> Cristiano Ligieri Pereira writes:

> Hi all,

> I have a Intel XScale based board (80200EVB aka LRH) and Cygmon source
> code for this board. The board comes with Cygmon image in it. I have two
> questions:

> 1. Is it possible to use cygmon to load an eCos application since GDB
> stubs is implemented in it? (from previous messages I understand that
> RedBoot replaced Cygmon, which is deprecated, but in this case I don't
> have Redboot and need to get eCos running on the Board as quick as
> possible)

Yes, you should be able to use cygmon for downloading eCos code. You
don't need to use gdb. You can also download an ELF or S-record file
from the cygmon command line.

> 2. How can I use Cygmon source code to speed up porting RedBoot in the
> case I cannot use Cygmon to load an application? As far as I understand
> all the initialization code can be reused as well as the GDB stubs
> routines. What else? 

I don't know how useful the cygmon sources will be. The best place to
start would be the existing eCos XScale port on the Cyclone IQ80310.

--Mark

Re: [ECOS] How useful CygMon can be?

[Cristiano Ligieri Pereira]

> >>>>> Cristiano Ligieri Pereira writes:
> 
> > Hi all,
> 
> > I have a Intel XScale based board (80200EVB aka LRH) and Cygmon source
> > code for this board. The board comes with Cygmon image in it. I have two
> > questions:
> 
> > 1. Is it possible to use cygmon to load an eCos application since GDB
> > stubs is implemented in it? (from previous messages I understand that
> > RedBoot replaced Cygmon, which is deprecated, but in this case I don't
> > have Redboot and need to get eCos running on the Board as quick as
> > possible)
> 
> Yes, you should be able to use cygmon for downloading eCos code. You
> don't need to use gdb. You can also download an ELF or S-record file
> from the cygmon command line.

I guess I need GDB in order to see debugging messages on my Linux console
through the serial, right?

> 
> > 2. How can I use Cygmon source code to speed up porting RedBoot in the
> > case I cannot use Cygmon to load an application? As far as I understand
> > all the initialization code can be reused as well as the GDB stubs
> > routines. What else? 
> 
> I don't know how useful the cygmon sources will be. The best place to
> start would be the existing eCos XScale port on the Cyclone IQ80310.

Yes. I'm aware of that. The big difference is that the 80200EVB uses an
FPGA to control SDRAM, Flash, serial and the other peripherals. All these
devices are initialized in the CygMon. What I'm wondering is what else
more should I initialize from an eCos application configured to run on
SDRAM to make it work properly.

Thanks,
Cristiano.

Re: [ECOS] How useful CygMon can be?

[Mark Salter]

>>>>> Cristiano Ligieri Pereira writes:

>> >>>>> Cristiano Ligieri Pereira writes:
>> 
>> > Hi all,
>> 
>> > I have a Intel XScale based board (80200EVB aka LRH) and Cygmon source
>> > code for this board. The board comes with Cygmon image in it. I have two
>> > questions:
>> 
>> > 1. Is it possible to use cygmon to load an eCos application since GDB
>> > stubs is implemented in it? (from previous messages I understand that
>> > RedBoot replaced Cygmon, which is deprecated, but in this case I don't
>> > have Redboot and need to get eCos running on the Board as quick as
>> > possible)
>> 
>> Yes, you should be able to use cygmon for downloading eCos code. You
>> don't need to use gdb. You can also download an ELF or S-record file
>> from the cygmon command line.

> I guess I need GDB in order to see debugging messages on my Linux console
> through the serial, right?

Yes and No. An eCos app could be configured to work with or without gdb.

>> 
>> > 2. How can I use Cygmon source code to speed up porting RedBoot in the
>> > case I cannot use Cygmon to load an application? As far as I understand
>> > all the initialization code can be reused as well as the GDB stubs
>> > routines. What else? 
>> 
>> I don't know how useful the cygmon sources will be. The best place to
>> start would be the existing eCos XScale port on the Cyclone IQ80310.

> Yes. I'm aware of that. The big difference is that the 80200EVB uses an
> FPGA to control SDRAM, Flash, serial and the other peripherals. All these
> devices are initialized in the CygMon.

So, copy the existing xscale port, then replace the iq80310-specific
parts with the code from cygmon. That seems like the easiest approach.

 What I'm wondering is what else
> more should I initialize from an eCos application configured to run on
> SDRAM to make it work properly.

The usual approach is to put as much initialization as practical into the
RAM based app. That way, most of the init code has been tested to some
degree by the time you transition to a ROM startup app.

--Mark