Since we lack information about the DRAM initialization for the Allwinner A64 SoC, booting any A64 based board like the Pine64 is a bit involved at the moment. Add a README file to explain the process. Signed-off-by: Andre Przywara <andre.przywara@arm.com> Reviewed-by: Tom Rini <trini@konsulko.com> [trini: Move to board/sunxi/ from doc/] Signed-off-by: Tom Rini <trini@konsulko.com>master
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Pine64 board README |
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==================== |
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|
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The Pine64(+) is a single board computer equipped with an AArch64 capable ARMv8 |
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compliant Allwinner A64 SoC. |
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This chip has ARM Cortex A-53 cores and thus can run both in AArch32 |
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(compatible to 32-bit ARMv7) and AArch64 modes. Upon reset the SoC starts |
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in AArch32 mode and executes 32-bit code from the Boot ROM (BROM). |
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This has some implications on U-Boot. |
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|
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Quick start |
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============ |
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- Get hold of a boot0.img file (see below for more details). |
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- Get the boot0img tool source from the tools directory in [1] and compile |
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that on your host. |
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- Build U-Boot: |
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$ export CROSS_COMPILE=aarch64-linux-gnu- |
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$ make pine64_plus_defconfig |
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$ make |
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- You also need a compiled ARM Trusted Firmware (ATF) binary. Checkout the |
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"allwinner" branch from the github repository [2] and build it: |
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$ export CROSS_COMPILE=aarch64-linux-gnu- |
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$ make PLAT=sun50iw1p1 DEBUG=1 bl31 |
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The resulting binary is build/sun50iw1p1/debug/bl31.bin. |
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|
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Now put an empty (or disposable) micro SD card in your card reader and learn |
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its device file name, replacing /dev/sd<x> below with the result (that could |
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be /dev/mmcblk<x> as well): |
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|
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$ ./boot0img --device /dev/sd<x> -e -u u-boot.bin -B boot0.img \ |
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-d trampoline64:0x44000 -s bl31.bin -a 0x44008 -p 100 |
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(either copying the respective files to the working directory or specifying |
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the paths directly) |
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|
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This will create a new partition table (with a 100 MB FAT boot partition), |
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copies boot0.img, ATF and U-Boot to the proper locations on the SD card and |
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will fill in the magic Allwinner header to be recognized by boot0. |
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Prefix the above call with "sudo" if you don't have write access to the |
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uSD card. You can also use "-o output.img" instead of "--device /dev/sd<x>" |
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to create an image file and "dd" that to the uSD card. |
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Omitting the "-p" option will skip the partition table. |
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|
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Now put this uSD card in the board and power it on. You should be greeted by |
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the U-Boot prompt. |
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|
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|
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Main U-Boot |
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============ |
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The main U-Boot proper is a real 64-bit ARMv8 port and runs entirely in the |
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64-bit AArch64 mode. It can load any AArch64 code, EFI applications or arm64 |
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Linux kernel images (often named "Image") using the booti command. |
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Launching 32-bit code and kernels is technically possible, though not without |
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drawbacks (or hacks to avoid them) and currently not implemented. |
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|
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SPL support |
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============ |
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The main task of the SPL support is to bring up the DRAM controller and make |
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DRAM actually accessible. At the moment there is no documentation or source |
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code available which would do this. |
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There are currently two ways to overcome this situation: using a tainted 32-bit |
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SPL (involving some hacks and resulting in a non-redistributable binary, thus |
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not described here) or using the Allwinner boot0 blob. |
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|
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boot0 method |
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------------- |
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boot0 is Allwiner's secondary program loader and it can be used as some kind |
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of SPL replacement to get U-Boot up and running. |
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The binary is a 32 KByte blob and contained on every Pine64 image distributed |
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so far. It can be easily extracted from a micro SD card or an image file: |
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# dd if=/dev/sd<x> of=boot0.bin bs=8k skip=1 count=4 |
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where /dev/sd<x> is the device name of the uSD card or the name of the image |
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file. Apparently Allwinner allows re-distribution of this proprietary code |
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as-is. |
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For the time being this boot0 blob is the only redistributable way of making |
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U-Boot work on the Pine64. Beside loading the various parts of the (original) |
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firmware it also switches the core into AArch64 mode. |
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The original boot0 code looks for U-Boot at a certain place on an uSD card |
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(at 19096 KB), also it expects a header with magic bytes and a checksum. |
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There is a tool called boot0img[1] which takes a boot0.bin image and a compiled |
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U-Boot binary (plus other binaries) and will populate that header accordingly. |
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To make space for the magic header, the pine64_plus_defconfig will make sure |
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there is sufficient space at the beginning of the U-Boot binary. |
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boot0img will also take care of putting the different binaries at the right |
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places on the uSD card and works around unused, but mandatory parts by using |
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trampoline code. See the output of "boot0img -h" for more information. |
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boot0img can also patch boot0 to avoid loading U-Boot from 19MB, instead |
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fetching it from just behind the boot0 binary (-B option). |
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FEL boot |
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========= |
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FEL is the name of the Allwinner defined USB boot protocol built-in the |
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mask ROM of most Allwinner SoCs. It allows to bootstrap a board solely |
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by using the USB-OTG interface and a host port on another computer. |
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Since FEL boot does not work with boot0, it requires the libdram hack, which |
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is not described here. |
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[1] https://github.com/apritzel/pine64/ |
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[2] https://github.com/apritzel/arm-trusted-firmware.git |
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