Direct-Boot Linux developers kit release notes

DBLX developers kit based on Diags release 1.44
Stig Telfer, Alpha Processor Inc, 8 December 2000

Introduction to embedded boot firmware
Platforms supported by this release
Files required for DBLX functionality
Notes on the kernel configuration
Release notes

Introduction

This package provides support for embedded boot of a linux kernel. Embedded boot is the concept where the booted kernel is firmware-resident. The hardware and software environment required by a booting kernel is configured and prepared by the Alpha Diagnostics.

Supported Platforms

Platforms supported by this release:

UP2000 (Swordfish)
UP2000+ (Swordfish+)
CS20 (Shark)

UP1000 support has been removed in this release due to a strange problem during heavy disk load.

Files included in this release

Several key files are needed to boot an embedded Linux kernel.

diags.rom - Alpha Diags ROM image. This must be configured for the target platform. See configuring diags
OSF PALcode ROM image. This is produced from the PALcode source tree.
Embedded Linux kernel. A small patch is required for the kernel to provide embedded boot support

Notes on configuring the embedded boot kernel

To patch the kernel source tree with the patch supplied, execute the following from the top level of the kernel source tree (for example, /usr/src/linux):

patch -p1 < patch.file

Where patch.file in the above is the patch file required to provide embedded boot functionality.

Don't use a generic kernel, choose the 'DP264' option.
Don't choose "Use SRM as bootloader". This will break the kernel you build at an early stage.
To have a kernel that halts (in this case, returns to the diags prompt), you need to remove the looping-on-MILO clause towards the end of function common_shutdown_1 in file arch/alpha/kernel/process.c
To make the required ROM image, type 'make romboot' after 'make boot'. A file, arch/alpha/boot/vmlinuz.rom will appear if the build was successful.

Release Notes