[ECOS] eCos bring up on OMAP3530 (Cortex-A8)

[ECOS] eCos bring up on OMAP3530 (Cortex-A8)

[vivin uthappa]

Hello Everyone,

    Is there a toolchain available for ARMv7 Cortex-A8 architecture
and does eCos build properly with that toolchain? Me and my team are
trying to bring up eCos on OMAP3530. And we are currently doing a
feasibility study on the idea.

    We have used the
arm-2007q3-51-arm-none-linux-gnueabi-i686-pc-linux-gnu toolchain from
CodeSourcery for Linux OS. Can we use the same toolchain for eCos too?

    I have seen that there already is support for ARMv7 Cortex-M3
available. To start our work on OMAP3530 can we use the eCos sources
for Cortex-M3 as reference?

Best regards,
Uthappa

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Re: [ECOS] eCos bring up on OMAP3530 (Cortex-A8)

[Nick Garnett]

vivin uthappa <vivinuthappa@gmail.com> writes:

> Hello Everyone,
> 
>     Is there a toolchain available for ARMv7 Cortex-A8 architecture
> and does eCos build properly with that toolchain? Me and my team are
> trying to bring up eCos on OMAP3530. And we are currently doing a
> feasibility study on the idea.
> 
>     We have used the
> arm-2007q3-51-arm-none-linux-gnueabi-i686-pc-linux-gnu toolchain from
> CodeSourcery for Linux OS. Can we use the same toolchain for eCos too?

No. Linux toolchains are unsuitable for use with eCos. Use the EABI
toolchain that is distributed with eCos. However, it may need to be
rebuilt to include A8 runtime libraries.

> 
>     I have seen that there already is support for ARMv7 Cortex-M3
> available. To start our work on OMAP3530 can we use the eCos sources
> for Cortex-M3 as reference?

No. The M variant only executes the Thumb2 instruction set and has a
totally different exception model. It is essentially a different
architecture. The A and R variants are much closer to the existing
ARM9 architecture and should be supported with careful extensions to
the existing ARM architecture HAL, possibly with the addition of
Cortex-A and -R variant HALs.



-- 
Nick Garnett                                       eCos Kernel Architect
eCosCentric Limited    http://www.eCosCentric.com       The eCos experts
Barnwell House, Barnwell Drive, Cambridge, UK.      Tel: +44 1223 245571
Registered in England and Wales:                         Reg No: 4422071


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Re: [ECOS] eCos bring up on OMAP3530 (Cortex-A8)

[vivin uthappa]

Hello Nick,

    Many thanks for the reply.

    Is there any online documentation or tutorial on
developing/modifying the EABI toolchain that is distributed with eCos?

Best regards,
Uthappa


On Fri, May 22, 2009 at 10:34 PM, Nick Garnett <nickg@ecoscentric.com> wrote:
> vivin uthappa <vivinuthappa@gmail.com> writes:
>
>> Hello Everyone,
>>
>>     Is there a toolchain available for ARMv7 Cortex-A8 architecture
>> and does eCos build properly with that toolchain? Me and my team are
>> trying to bring up eCos on OMAP3530. And we are currently doing a
>> feasibility study on the idea.
>>
>>     We have used the
>> arm-2007q3-51-arm-none-linux-gnueabi-i686-pc-linux-gnu toolchain from
>> CodeSourcery for Linux OS. Can we use the same toolchain for eCos too?
>
> No. Linux toolchains are unsuitable for use with eCos. Use the EABI
> toolchain that is distributed with eCos. However, it may need to be
> rebuilt to include A8 runtime libraries.
>
>>
>>     I have seen that there already is support for ARMv7 Cortex-M3
>> available. To start our work on OMAP3530 can we use the eCos sources
>> for Cortex-M3 as reference?
>
> No. The M variant only executes the Thumb2 instruction set and has a
> totally different exception model. It is essentially a different
> architecture. The A and R variants are much closer to the existing
> ARM9 architecture and should be supported with careful extensions to
> the existing ARM architecture HAL, possibly with the addition of
> Cortex-A and -R variant HALs.
>
>
>
> --
> Nick Garnett                                       eCos Kernel Architect
> eCosCentric Limited    http://www.eCosCentric.com       The eCos experts
> Barnwell House, Barnwell Drive, Cambridge, UK.      Tel: +44 1223 245571
> Registered in England and Wales:                         Reg No: 4422071
>
>

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Re: [ECOS] eCos bring up on OMAP3530 (Cortex-A8)

[Nick Garnett]

vivin uthappa <vivinuthappa@gmail.com> writes:

> Hello Nick,
> 
>     Many thanks for the reply.
> 
>     Is there any online documentation or tutorial on
> developing/modifying the EABI toolchain that is distributed with eCos?

There is nothing eCos specific beyond the standard toolchain build
instructions (although these are now out of date). You will need to
look at the GCC documentation for how to configure for Cortex-A. Note
that there should be no need to make any modifications to the
toolchain sources, Cortex-A support is a standard part of GCC.


-- 
Nick Garnett                                       eCos Kernel Architect
eCosCentric Limited    http://www.eCosCentric.com       The eCos experts
Barnwell House, Barnwell Drive, Cambridge, UK.      Tel: +44 1223 245571
Registered in England and Wales:                         Reg No: 4422071


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Re: [ECOS] eCos bring up on OMAP3530 (Cortex-A8)

[vivin uthappa]

Hello Nick,

    The OMAP3 EVM board that we use here comes with U-Boot installed.
To get the eCos kernel image running on the target board is it
necessary that the bootloader has to be RedBoot? If the answer is "no"
then is there anything we need to watch out for while using U-Boot
instead of RedBoot to bootup eCos?

Thanks and regards,
Uthappa


On Tue, May 26, 2009 at 3:14 PM, Nick Garnett <nickg@ecoscentric.com> wrote:
> vivin uthappa <vivinuthappa@gmail.com> writes:
>
>> Hello Nick,
>>
>>     Many thanks for the reply.
>>
>>     Is there any online documentation or tutorial on
>> developing/modifying the EABI toolchain that is distributed with eCos?
>
> There is nothing eCos specific beyond the standard toolchain build
> instructions (although these are now out of date). You will need to
> look at the GCC documentation for how to configure for Cortex-A. Note
> that there should be no need to make any modifications to the
> toolchain sources, Cortex-A support is a standard part of GCC.
>
>
> --
> Nick Garnett                                       eCos Kernel Architect
> eCosCentric Limited    http://www.eCosCentric.com       The eCos experts
> Barnwell House, Barnwell Drive, Cambridge, UK.      Tel: +44 1223 245571
> Registered in England and Wales:                         Reg No: 4422071
>
>

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Re: [ECOS] eCos bring up on OMAP3530 (Cortex-A8)

[Nick Garnett]

vivin uthappa <vivinuthappa@gmail.com> writes:

> Hello Nick,
> 
>     The OMAP3 EVM board that we use here comes with U-Boot installed.
> To get the eCos kernel image running on the target board is it
> necessary that the bootloader has to be RedBoot? If the answer is "no"
> then is there anything we need to watch out for while using U-Boot
> instead of RedBoot to bootup eCos?

Generally we would replace U-Boot with RedBoot in order to bring up a
board. I have no experience of getting eCos to boot from U-Boot, maybe
others do.

-- 
Nick Garnett                                       eCos Kernel Architect
eCosCentric Limited    http://www.eCosCentric.com       The eCos experts
Barnwell House, Barnwell Drive, Cambridge, UK.      Tel: +44 1223 245571
Registered in England and Wales:                         Reg No: 4422071


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Re: [ECOS] eCos bring up on OMAP3530 (Cortex-A8)

[Simon Kallweit]

Nick Garnett wrote:
> Generally we would replace U-Boot with RedBoot in order to bring up a
> board. I have no experience of getting eCos to boot from U-Boot, maybe
> others do.

I have used U-Boot on an ARM based platform with embedded linux. For 
work with eCos, I would definitely prefer RedBoot, especially as he 
tries to bring up a new architecture and platform. I think getting 
RedBoot to work first using traditional JTAG debugging is the way to go. 
I can only speak for myself though.

Simon


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Re: [ECOS] eCos bring up on OMAP3530 (Cortex-A8)

[Rutger Hofman]

Nick Garnett wrote:
> vivin uthappa <vivinuthappa@gmail.com> writes:
> 
>> Hello Nick,
>>
>>     The OMAP3 EVM board that we use here comes with U-Boot installed.
>> To get the eCos kernel image running on the target board is it
>> necessary that the bootloader has to be RedBoot? If the answer is "no"
>> then is there anything we need to watch out for while using U-Boot
>> instead of RedBoot to bootup eCos?
> 
> Generally we would replace U-Boot with RedBoot in order to bring up a
> board. I have no experience of getting eCos to boot from U-Boot, maybe
> others do.

I boot u-boot on my BlackFin BF548 EZ-Kit, then boot my eCos application 
from u-boot without any problems.

Rutger

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