SD root filesystem flies!

[loonsailor]

Thanks, karurosu.  I can mount the nand now.

Is there any reason that I should have formatted my sd card with a jffs2 file system, rather than ext3?  Would it be faster, or make the flash last longer?

BTW, mtab  shows me the same thing mount did.  Now that I've mounted the nand (ro), it shows:

rootfs / rootfs rw 0 0
tmpfs /lib/init/rw tmpfs rw,nosuid,mode=0755 0 0
proc /proc proc rw,noexec,nosuid,nodev 0 0
sysfs /sys sysfs rw,noexec,nosuid,nodev 0 0
varrun /var/run tmpfs rw,nosuid,mode=0755 0 0
varlock /var/lock tmpfs rw,noexec,nosuid,nodev,mode=1777 0 0
udev /dev tmpfs rw,mode=0755 0 0
tmpfs /dev/shm tmpfs rw,nosuid,nodev 0 0
devpts /dev/pts devpts rw,noexec,nosuid,gid=5,mode=620 0 0
tmpfs /var/cache/apt tmpfs rw,noatime 0 0
/dev/mtdblock1 /mnt/nand jffs2 ro 0 0

I'm confident that the SD is the root system now, even though mtab (and mount) doesn't confirm it, so no worries.

I'll try to write this up for the wiki, so it's easier for the next noob than it was for me.

Thanks again!

[karurosu]

Every flash memory have an effect known as memory wear, were some blocks become unreadable, to avoid this problem a technique known as wear leveling was created.
Flash cards and every SD have wear leveling built-in, via an integrated controller, so you can use whatever you want (ext2 is the recommended, I am using ext3 myself because my sheeva keeps crashing from external noise), on the othr hand, mtd devices (like the NAND) are "RAW" in the sense that there is no controller performing wear leveling, so it has to be implemented by software, jffs2 and UBIFS are 2 fs that implement it.

So, short answer: you don't need jffs2 in your card, in fact you cannot use it.

[loonsailor]

I've written up my experience in the form of a tutorial on how to use an SD as the root file system device, at http://www.openplug.org/plugwiki/index.php/SD_Card_As_Root_File_System.

Thanks everyone, for the help.

[Neonfly]

Hey,
I have another problem with booting from a sdcard-device.
I copied all the stuff to the sd card an configured u-boot.
U-boot allways find a filesystem on mmcblk0p1, but the boot-process stops after 'Freeing init memory: 140K' without any output (no Kernelpanic an so on)

Here are the outputs:

Code:

## Booting image at 00800000 ...
   Image Name:   Linux-2.6.30-rc6
   Created:      2009-05-20  11:42:10 UTC
   Image Type:   ARM Linux Kernel Image (uncompressed)
   Data Size:    2595144 Bytes =  2.5 MB
   Load Address: 00008000
   Entry Point:  00008000
   Verifying Checksum ... OK
OK

Starting kernel ...

Uncompressing Linux... done, booting the kernel.
Linux version 2.6.30-rc6 (kelly@speedy) (gcc version 4.2.1) #2 PREEMPT Wed May 20 05:42:04 MDT 2009
CPU: Feroceon 88FR131 [56251311] revision 1 (ARMv5TE), cr=00053177
CPU: VIVT data cache, VIVT instruction cache
Machine: Marvell SheevaPlug Reference Board
Memory policy: ECC disabled, Data cache writeback
Built 1 zonelists in Zone order, mobility grouping on.  Total pages: 130048
Kernel command line: console=ttyS0,115200 mtdparts=orion_nand:0x400000@0x100000(uImage),0x1fb00000@0x500000(rootfs) root=/dev/mmcblk0p1
NR_IRQS:114
PID hash table entries: 2048 (order: 11, 8192 bytes)
Console: colour dummy device 80x30
Dentry cache hash table entries: 65536 (order: 6, 262144 bytes)
Inode-cache hash table entries: 32768 (order: 5, 131072 bytes)
Memory: 256MB 256MB = 512MB total
Memory: 513408KB available (4680K code, 998K data, 140K init, 0K highmem)
SLUB: Genslabs=13, HWalign=32, Order=0-3, MinObjects=0, CPUs=1, Nodes=1
Calibrating delay loop... 1192.75 BogoMIPS (lpj=5963776)
Mount-cache hash table entries: 512
CPU: Testing write buffer coherency: ok
net_namespace: 980 bytes
NET: Registered protocol family 16
Kirkwood: MV88F6281-A0, TCLK=200000000.
Feroceon L2: Enabling L2
Feroceon L2: Cache support initialised.
Kirkwood: Gating clock using mask 0x1ac224
bio: create slab <bio-0> at 0
SCSI subsystem initialized
usbcore: registered new interface driver usbfs
usbcore: registered new interface driver hub
usbcore: registered new device driver usb
cfg80211: Using static regulatory domain info
cfg80211: Regulatory domain: US
        (start_freq - end_freq @ bandwidth), (max_antenna_gain, max_eirp)
        (2402000 KHz - 2472000 KHz @ 40000 KHz), (600 mBi, 2700 mBm)
        (5170000 KHz - 5190000 KHz @ 40000 KHz), (600 mBi, 2300 mBm)
        (5190000 KHz - 5210000 KHz @ 40000 KHz), (600 mBi, 2300 mBm)
        (5210000 KHz - 5230000 KHz @ 40000 KHz), (600 mBi, 2300 mBm)
        (5230000 KHz - 5330000 KHz @ 40000 KHz), (600 mBi, 2300 mBm)
        (5735000 KHz - 5835000 KHz @ 40000 KHz), (600 mBi, 3000 mBm)
cfg80211: Calling CRDA for country: US
NET: Registered protocol family 2
IP route cache hash table entries: 16384 (order: 4, 65536 bytes)
TCP established hash table entries: 65536 (order: 7, 524288 bytes)
TCP bind hash table entries: 65536 (order: 6, 262144 bytes)
TCP: Hash tables configured (established 65536 bind 65536)
TCP reno registered
NET: Registered protocol family 1
JFFS2 version 2.2. (NAND) © 2001-2006 Red Hat, Inc.
JFS: nTxBlock = 4013, nTxLock = 32104
msgmni has been set to 1003
alg: No test for stdrng (krng)
io scheduler noop registered
io scheduler anticipatory registered
io scheduler deadline registered
io scheduler cfq registered (default)
Serial: 8250/16550 driver, 2 ports, IRQ sharing disabled
serial8250.0: ttyS0 at MMIO 0xf1012000 (irq = 33) is a 16550A
console [ttyS0] enabled
brd: module loaded
loop: module loaded
Driver 'sd' needs updating - please use bus_type methods
MV-643xx 10/100/1000 ethernet driver version 1.4
mv643xx_eth smi: probed
net eth0: port 0 with MAC address 00:50:43:01:d2:a8
libertas_sdio: Libertas SDIO driver
libertas_sdio: Copyright Pierre Ossman
NAND device: Manufacturer ID: 0xad, Chip ID: 0xdc (Hynix NAND 512MiB 3,3V 8-bit)
Scanning device for bad blocks
Bad eraseblock 2400 at 0x000012c00000
2 cmdlinepart partitions found on MTD device orion_nand
Creating 2 MTD partitions on "orion_nand":
0x000000100000-0x000000500000 : "uImage"
0x000000500000-0x000020000000 : "rootfs"
ehci_hcd: USB 2.0 'Enhanced' Host Controller (EHCI) Driver
orion-ehci orion-ehci.0: Marvell Orion EHCI
orion-ehci orion-ehci.0: new USB bus registered, assigned bus number 1
orion-ehci orion-ehci.0: irq 19, io mem 0xf1050000
orion-ehci orion-ehci.0: USB 2.0 started, EHCI 1.00
usb usb1: configuration #1 chosen from 1 choice
hub 1-0:1.0: USB hub found
hub 1-0:1.0: 1 port detected
Initializing USB Mass Storage driver...
usbcore: registered new interface driver usb-storage
USB Mass Storage support registered.
usbcore: registered new interface driver ums-datafab
usbcore: registered new interface driver ums-freecom
usbcore: registered new interface driver ums-jumpshot
usbcore: registered new interface driver ums-sddr09
usbcore: registered new interface driver ums-sddr55
mice: PS/2 mouse device common for all mice
rtc-mv rtc-mv: rtc core: registered rtc-mv as rtc0
i2c /dev entries driver
cpuidle: using governor ladder
cpuidle: using governor menu
sdhci: Secure Digital Host Controller Interface driver
sdhci: Copyright(c) Pierre Ossman
mmc0: mvsdio driver initialized, lacking card detect (fall back to polling)
Registered led device: plug:green:health
mv_xor_shared mv_xor_shared.0: Marvell shared XOR driver
mv_xor_shared mv_xor_shared.1: Marvell shared XOR driver
mv_xor mv_xor.0: Marvell XOR: ( xor cpy )
mv_xor mv_xor.1: Marvell XOR: ( xor fill cpy )
mv_xor mv_xor.2: Marvell XOR: ( xor cpy )
mmc0: host does not support reading read-only switch. assuming write-enable.
mmc0: new high speed SDHC card at address 0002
mmcblk0: mmc0:0002       3.81 GiB
 mmcblk0: p1
mv_xor mv_xor.3: Marvell XOR: ( xor fill cpy )
usbcore: registered new interface driver usbhid
usbhid: v2.6:USB HID core driver
oprofile: using timer interrupt.
TCP cubic registered
NET: Registered protocol family 17
RPC: Registered udp transport module.
RPC: Registered tcp transport module.
lib80211: common routines for IEEE802.11 drivers
rtc-mv rtc-mv: setting system clock to 2009-10-17 18:35:22 UTC (1255804522)
kjournald starting.  Commit interval 5 seconds
EXT3 FS on mmcblk0p1, internal journal
EXT3-fs: recovery complete.
EXT3-fs: mounted filesystem with writeback data mode.
VFS: Mounted root (ext3 filesystem) on device 179:1.
Freeing init memory: 140K
// HERE IT STOPS

Are there any experiences with that problem? Maybe is there something i have to write in the /etc/fstab? Because there is nothing in there (but it works when i boot from nand).


*-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------*
Problem solved: According to the wiki-entry (btw thanks a lot for this site) i copied the files in the /dev directory with

Code:

cp -a /dev/* /mnt/sdcard/dev/

... don't know why but

Code:

cp -ax /dev/* /mnt/sdcard/dev/

was a better solution!

[samweber]

I followed the steps in the wiki write-up in hopes of getting past the kernel panic I get when trying to boot from SD Card.  No joy.  Here's what I see:

Marvell>> setenv bootargs console=ttyS0,115200 root=/dev/mmcblk0p1 rw
Marvell>> setenv bootcmd 'mmcinit; setenv bootargs $(bootargs_console) $(mtdpart
itions) $(bootargs_root); nand read.e 0x00800000 0x00100000 0x00400000; bootm 0x
00800000'
Marvell>> boot
Unknown command 'mmcinit' - try 'help'

----------------

This is the version of U-boot I have:

U-Boot 1.1.4 (Apr  9 2009 - 12:23:12) Marvell version: 3.4.16

This matches the version referenced in the wiki but there is no mmcinit command in the help menu.  There should be, right?

[samweber]

Well, to answer my own question, yes, there should be an mmcinit command but there isn't in that version of u-boot.

So I downloaded the latest u-boot and used bubt to burn the new image to nand.  I answered 'y' to the environment override question because the release notes are ambiguous on this point and seems to be confused about the difference between override and overwrite.  I then went through the environment variables to see what had changed (which was a lot) and fixed things as appropriate.  The latest results are as follows (abject failure):

Marvell>> boot
Error! cmd : 8, err : 0201
SD found. Card desciption is:
Manufacturer:       0x03, OEM "SD"
Product name:       "SU02G", revision 8.0
Serial number:      553266355
Manufacturing date: 7/2008
CRC:                0x00, b0 = 0

NAND read: device 0 offset 0x100000, size 0x400000

Reading data from 0x4ff800 -- 100% complete.
 4194304 bytes read: OK
## Booting image at 00800000 ...
   Image Name:   Linux-2.6.22.18
   Created:      2009-04-04   1:49:44 UTC
   Image Type:   ARM Linux Kernel Image (uncompressed)
   Data Size:    2070252 Bytes =  2 MB
   Load Address: 00008000
   Entry Point:  00008000
   Verifying Checksum ... OK
OK

Starting kernel ...

Uncompressing Linux.............................................................
..................................................................... done, boot
ing the kernel.

----------------------

At this point, frozen.  Suggestions?  What is command 8?  What is error 0201?  Is the kernel not new enough?

[fragfutter]

you are loading the kernel from nand and booting it. The kernel should mount mmc and use it as rootfs. Thats what you want?

Your kernel is pretty old. I'm not sure it can use the sdcard. You are most likely missing an initrd. Initrd must be loaded to a second memory area and passed to bootm as the second parameter.

[samweber]

fragfutter, thanks for your response.  I didn't make clear in previous posts exactly what I'm attempting to do.  Thanks for pointing that out.  I'm trying to leave the kernel alone in nand flash and use the SD card for just the RFS.

I did learn yesterday that the error 0201 on command 8 is in response to the mmcinit command.  If you interrupt the boot process and get a u-boot prompt, you can type mmcinit.  If everything is beautiful, you won't see an error, just the card description.  I noticed that I get the error the first time I type the command but not on subsequent times.  This information fits with what I've seen in other posts that there can be timing issues with different SD media.

I think you may be right about the age of the kernel.  I'm using the kernel I put on the device when I got it some months ago.  I'll try upgrading to v1.2 everything and see if that does it.

[A_W]

Noob question here:

How fast does the SD card actually have to be, in order to be useful?

[fragfutter]

depends on the use case. if you buy a new one i would go for class 6. Otherwise just try if it is fast enough for you.

[DamonHD]

I'm booting off NAND but have all the working areas other than / spilled onto a class 2 SD 32GB card (I think; I'm not in front of it now) and generally I'm happy with performance.

Rgds

Damon

[worstmf]

I tried and tried reinstalling the operating system on sheeva but with no success . So I was thinking if someone would be kind enough to give me an image with a clean system witch I could write to an sd card. I'm actually desperate and I would be very gratefully even with a small sum of cash if it's necessary.
thanks in advance

[pingtoo]

I tried and tried reinstalling the operating system on sheeva but with no success . So I was thinking if someone would be kind enough to give me an image with a clean system witch I could write to an sd card. I'm actually desperate and I would be very gratefully even with a small sum of cash if it's necessary.
thanks in advance

I would offer my setup if you really want it, however mine is base on GENTOO with very specific custom setup so I think it will not be of your interest. If you can describe where you stuck right now I will try to see if I can help.

[kkalyan]

Hi All,

I'm trying to load the filesystem from a 1GB SD card. I'm using an Atmel Arm processor.
I've done the partition on the SD card, copied the root filesystem in to it. I wanted to check if its working or not, So I connected the SD card through an USB adaptor to X86 computer. Then I started my Board that load Kernel from NAND flash and File system from the SD card connected to the computer using NFS. It was working so the file sytem got copied properly.
   But then When I connect the SD card to the Board, it starts well but stops throwing an error message " Kernel panic - not syncing: No init found.  Try passing init= option to kernel."

I used Ext2 for the file system and please find the logs below. It would be of great help if some one can help me on this.. 


DRAM:  64 MB
NAND:  512 MiB
DataFlash: 264 KB  AT45DB021
In:    serial
Out:   serial
Err:   serial
Net:   macb0
macb0: Starting autonegotiation...
macb0: Autonegotiation complete
macb0: link up, 100Mbps full-duplex (lpa: 0x45e1)
Hit any key to stop autoboot:  0

NAND read: device 0 offset 0x200000, size 0x200000
 2097152 bytes read: OK
## Booting kernel from Legacy Image at 22000000 ...
   Image Name:   Linux-2.6.31.9-at91
   Image Type:   ARM Linux Kernel Image (uncompressed)
   Data Size:    1473900 Bytes =  1.4 MB
   Load Address: 20008000
   Entry Point:  20008000
   Verifying Checksum ... OK
   Loading Kernel Image ... OK
OK

Starting kernel ...

Uncompressing Linux............................................................................................. done, booting the kernel.
Linux version 2.6.31.9-at91 (armdev@linux1) (gcc version 4.3.3 (Sourcery G++ Lite 2009q1-203) ) #1 Tue Dec 29 11:37:56 EST 2009
CPU: ARM926EJ-S [41069265] revision 5 (ARMv5TEJ), cr=00053177
CPU: VIVT data cache, VIVT instruction cache
Machine: Micromint Electrum 100
Memory policy: ECC disabled, Data cache writeback
Clocks: CPU 396 MHz, master 132 MHz, main 18.432 MHz
Built 1 zonelists in Zone order, mobility grouping on.  Total pages: 16256
Kernel command line: console=ttyS0,115200 root=/dev/mmcblk0p1 rw ip=192.168.1.231:192.168.1.249::255.255.255.0::eth0:none
PID hash table entries: 256 (order: 8, 1024 bytes)
Dentry cache hash table entries: 8192 (order: 3, 32768 bytes)
Inode-cache hash table entries: 4096 (order: 2, 16384 bytes)
Memory: 64MB = 64MB total
Memory: 61876KB available (2576K code, 230K data, 112K init, 0K highmem)
NR_IRQS:192
AT91: 96 gpio irqs in 3 banks
Console: colour dummy device 80x30
Calibrating delay loop... 197.83 BogoMIPS (lpj=989184)
Mount-cache hash table entries: 512
CPU: Testing write buffer coherency: ok
NET: Registered protocol family 16
AT91: Power Management (with slow clock mode)
AT91: Starting after user reset
bio: create slab <bio-0> at 0
SCSI subsystem initialized
usbcore: registered new interface driver usbfs
usbcore: registered new interface driver hub
usbcore: registered new device driver usb
NET: Registered protocol family 2
IP route cache hash table entries: 1024 (order: 0, 4096 bytes)
TCP established hash table entries: 2048 (order: 2, 16384 bytes)
TCP bind hash table entries: 2048 (order: 1, 8192 bytes)
TCP: Hash tables configured (established 2048 bind 2048)
TCP reno registered
NET: Registered protocol family 1
NetWinder Floating Point Emulator V0.97 (double precision)
JFFS2 version 2.2. (NAND) (SUMMARY)  © 2001-2006 Red Hat, Inc.
msgmni has been set to 120
io scheduler noop registered
io scheduler anticipatory registered (default)
atmel_usart.0: ttyS0 at MMIO 0xfffb0000 (irq = 6) is a ATMEL_SERIAL
console [ttyS0] enabled
atmel_usart.1: ttyS1 at MMIO 0xfefff200 (irq = 1) is a ATMEL_SERIAL
brd: module loaded
loop: module loaded
MACB_mii_bus: probed
eth0: Atmel MACB at 0xfffc4000 irq 21 (00:21:a3:00:00:15)
eth0: attached PHY driver [Generic PHY] (mii_bus:phy_addr=ffffffff:00, irq=-1)
NAND device: Manufacturer ID: 0x2c, Chip ID: 0xdc (Micron NAND 512MiB 3,3V 8-bit)
AT91 NAND: 8-bit, Software ECC
Scanning device for bad blocks
Bad eraseblock 697 at 0x000005720000
Creating 7 MTD partitions on "atmel_nand":
0x000000000000-0x000000040000 : "bootstrap"
0x000000040000-0x000000080000 : "uboot"
0x000000080000-0x0000000c0000 : "env1"
0x0000000c0000-0x000000100000 : "env2"
0x000000100000-0x000000200000 : "user"
0x000000200000-0x000000400000 : "linux"
0x000000400000-0x000020000000 : "root"
atmel_spi atmel_spi.0: Atmel SPI Controller at 0xfffc8000 (irq 12)
mtd_dataflash spi0.1: AT45DB021B (264 KBytes) pagesize 264 bytes (OTP)
atmel_spi atmel_spi.1: Atmel SPI Controller at 0xfffcc000 (irq 13)
usbmon: debugfs is not available
ohci_hcd: USB 1.1 'Open' Host Controller (OHCI) Driver
at91_ohci at91_ohci: AT91 OHCI
at91_ohci at91_ohci: new USB bus registered, assigned bus number 1
at91_ohci at91_ohci: irq 20, io mem 0x00500000
usb usb1: configuration #1 chosen from 1 choice
hub 1-0:1.0: USB hub found
hub 1-0:1.0: 2 ports detected
Initializing USB Mass Storage driver...
usbcore: registered new interface driver usb-storage
USB Mass Storage support registered.
udc: at91_udc version 3 May 2006
mice: PS/2 mouse device common for all mice
rtc-at91sam9 at91_rtt.0: rtc core: registered at91_rtt as rtc0
IRQ 1/rtc0: IRQF_DISABLED is not guaranteed on shared IRQs
rtc-at91sam9 at91_rtt.0: rtc0: SET TIME!
i2c /dev entries driver
Registered led device: ds1
Registered led device: ds2
usbcore: registered new interface driver usbhid
usbhid: v2.6:USB HID core driver
TCP cubic registered
NET: Registered protocol family 17
RPC: Registered udp transport module.
RPC: Registered tcp transport module.
rtc-at91sam9 at91_rtt.0: hctosys: unable to read the hardware clock
mmc0: host does not support reading read-only switch. assuming write-enable.
mmc0: new SD card at address 0002
mmcblk0: mmc0:0002 00000 971 MiB
 mmcblk0: p1
IP-Config: Complete:
     device=eth0, addr=192.168.1.231, mask=255.255.255.0, gw=255.255.255.255,
     host=192.168.1.231, domain=, nis-domain=(none),
     bootserver=192.168.1.249, rootserver=192.168.1.249, rootpath=
EXT2-fs warning: mounting unchecked fs, running e2fsck is recommended
VFS: Mounted root (ext2 filesystem) on device 179:1.
Freeing init memory: 112K
Warning: unable to open an initial console.
Kernel panic - not syncing: No init found.  Try passing init= option to kernel.
[<c002a458>] (unwind_backtrace+0x0/0xdc) from [<c02123bc>] (panic+0x40/0x108)
[<c02123bc>] (panic+0x40/0x108) from [<c00244d0>] (init_post+0xd0/0xf8)
[<c00244d0>] (init_post+0xd0/0xf8) from [<c000841c>] (kernel_init+0xd8/0x108)
[<c000841c>] (kernel_init+0xd8/0x108) from [<c0025cd8>] (kernel_thread_exit+0x0/0x8)

[TheDOC]

root=/dev/mmcblk0p

This one is wrong. You need to change it to root=/dev/sdb1 (1 if your rootfs is on the first partition, 2 if on the second and so on) and it should boot. If it doesn't, you need to add rootdelay=10 to give the usb time to spin up.