See what they recommend on the DENX U-Boot site, http://www.denx.de/wiki/U-Boot/WebHome.

There seem to be a lot of differences in the different plug types and versions of U-Boot.

On my SheevaPlug with U-Boot 2011.06 (Jul 03 2011 - 02:54:01), there is an "env" command:
I tried using it when I was getting some wierd behavior.I am sorry I didn't keep a copy of it.But one thing I have always wondered was what all those "x_bootargs*" and "x_bootcmd*" settings were for.  I didn't get an answer but I noticed that they were all re-created.

Now, I cannot boot the onboard nand.  So I missed something in my boot sequence.  Uimage and uinitrd seem to load and verify ok but it hangs on booting the kernel.

But the good news is that my new Debian testing version on an SD seems to work fine so far:
This is Debian 7.0, "Wheezy", "Linux debian 3.2.0-4-kirkwood #1 Debian 3.2.35-2 armv5tel GNU/Linux".

See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_ARM_microprocessor_cores.

Debian for ARM posts a new version every 3 months.  The latest is June 2011.

It must be the new U-Boot that's being fussy then.

Oh well, as long as I can boot SD or MTD I'm happy for now.  I do plan to try other USB devices though.  Not only flash drives but also rotary hard drives.

I don't know what I'm doing either.  I've only had my SheevaPlug about a month.

I had some misgivings the first time I used bubt to flash a new uboot.  But I had confidence in tftp since I had tried several different uImage kernels and uInitrd ramdisk images by loading them using tftp.

I hear what you are saying about PlugWiki.  Some of the pages are old or based on wrong information.  The good pages are hard to find sometimes.  It needs a better index or something.  I thought Martin Michlmayr's pages on www.cyrius.com were very informative.  Not only that, they are up to date.  Martin is on the Debian for ARM development team.  I got there by following a link on the Debian page, which is in turn one of the first links on the"main page" of the PlugWiki.

Is it the error where it also tells you that the maximum number is 16?  You can get around this with some "intermediate" variables.  On my SheevaPlug I have:

bootcmd=run bootcmd_sd; run bootcmd_usb; run bootcmd_mtd; run x_bootcmd;
bootcmd_mt1=ubi part nand0,1; ubi info; ubifsmount 'boot'; ubifsls; ubifsload 0x1100000 uInitrd; ubifsload 0x800000 uImage
bootcmd_mtd=run bootcmd_mt1; setenv bootargs ${bootargs_mtd} ${bootargs_std}; bootm 0x800000 0x1100000
bootcmd_mmc=mmc init; ext2load mmc 0:1 0x00800000 /uImage; ext2load mmc 0:1 0x01100000 /uInitrd;
bootcmd_sd=run bootcmd_mmc; setenv bootargs ${bootargs_mmc} ${bootargs_std}; bootm 0x800000 0x1100000;

I went through all that too.  I don't know how many times I tried different kernels and different versions of U-Boot.  I finally had success by following Martin Michlmayr's instructions:  http://www.cyrius.com/debian/kirkwood/sheevaplug/install.html.

You have to get the newest U-Boot:  http://www.cyrius.com/debian/kirkwood/sheevaplug/uboot-upgrade.html.

I installed Debian "Wheezy" on my SD card.  See:  http://www.cyrius.com/debian/kirkwood/sheevaplug/install.html.

This requires upgrading U-Boot first:  http://www.cyrius.com/debian/kirkwood/sheevaplug/uboot-upgrade.html.

You can get Das U-Boot source from DENX, http://www.denx.de/wiki/U-Boot/WebHome.  The kernel source comes from kernel.org.  The links I listed earlier are from the Debian for ARM project, http://www.debian.org/ports/arm/.

But don't ask me how to compile a kernel.  That would be new ground for me.  I plan to install developer tools and sources on my SheevaPlug on a working MMC/SD Debian setup.  If I have any success I will post on this forum.

No, you have to install first to USB or SD.  Then use "apt-get install mtd-utils" to get the ubi utilities.  In order to boot with root on ubifs, it has to be compiled into the kernel instead of loaded as a module.  Debian kernels 2.6.25 and later should include it.

I changed the layout on my SheevaPlug for a separate boot partition.  It is now:

I intend to boot SD most of the time and save my NAND from too many writes.

Clone it or just get a new SD card.  The Debian installer will know what to do with it.  It just has problems with MTD NAND partitions.

I used to know some Unix--but that was 20 years ago.  I feel like I have forgotton more than I ever knew.  So I just feel my way.

I see your point.  Make a separate /boot partition and don't change it very often.

You could try re-defining the mtd partitions.  This is done in uboot when the mtdparts environment variable is set.  On my SheevaPlug it is "mtdparts=mtdparts=orion_nand:512k(uboot),4m@1m(kernel),507m@5m(rootfs)".

Maybe "mtdparts=mtdparts=orion_nand:512k(uboot),100m@1m(boot),407m@105m(extra)" or "mtdparts=mtdparts=orion_nand:512k(uboot),4m@1m(kernel),100m@5m(boot),403m@105m(extra)" if you want to keep a uboot image in the default location.  Note, my math might be wrong, it needs to be verified.

I don't remember if I had to set mtdids first or if uboot took care of it:  "mtdids=nand0=orion_nand".  Then in my boot sequence, I run "ubi part nand0,2; ubifsmount rootfs; ubifsload 0x1100000 /boot/uInitrd; ubifsload 0x800000 /boot/uImage".  After a ubifs is mounted, you can run ubifsls to list files on the file system.

It is normal for there to be no erase blocks when a ubifs takes up the whole mtd partition.  The numbers are in your ubinfo for /dev/ubi0.  You need:

mkfs.ubifs -m 2048 -e 129024 -c 1984 -r ./romfs ./images/rootfs.ubifs.

For my SheevaPlug, with 512 MB NAND, I used:


My ubinfo:

You can get a new (DENX OpenBoot) version of uboot for DockStar from the link on the page http://www.cyrius.com/debian/kirkwood/sheevaplug/uboot-upgrade.html.

You can install Debian using Martin's instructions on http://www.cyrius.com/debian/kirkwood/sheevaplug/install.html.  You need to have serial console access to the DockStar, but there are also links on that page leading to serial access instructions.