LBOX
October 20, 2004
Q: I'm actually cooking up my own embedded Linux distribution, so I wouldn't be using uClinux. That leads me to the following question: is it possible to overwrite the entire contents of the flash drive?
Yes you can re-flash the whole device. But you should note a couple of things:
- You will probably still want to use uClinux.
- You can still cook your own distro using uClinux. You have total control, and can include whatever you want. uClinux is basically your choice of kernel 2.4.xxx or 2.6.xxx and whatever root filesystem stuff you want to put in. Because small size is so important on an embedded board, you use uClibc and tend to use Busybox to provide various standard functions.
- The processor is a MCF5272 - It does not have an MMU, and therefore requires the use of uClibC. All this means in a practical sense is that you have to call vfork() instead of fork() inside your code.
- There are several flash blocks/partitions currently defined. You could flash the device so that it will no longer boot by itself, or the kernel you flash might not work. Using a BDM module+adapter and GDB will allow you to recover and program a totally blank board.
- Also with the BDM, you can simply load a new image into ***SDRAM*** and start executing. This way you don't clobber the known good boot image.
- We mount part of the unused flash as a JFFS2 filesystem. This makes for a nice place to try code, or update webpages.
- Alternatively you can use the LBOX to MOUNT an NFS partition from your development computer. CrossCompile on it, and it's immediately available to run on the LBOX.
Posted by Iain at October 20, 2004 12:16 PMTrackBack URL for this entry: