Re: Debian on Synology Armada 370/XP NAS boxes

[Alexander Pohl <a.h.pohl@gmail.com>]

On 15/05/14 01:09, Paul Wise wrote:
> Have you attempted an install? The new Debian buildds/porterboxen have
> Marvell Armada 370/XP CPUs and are running
> linux-image-3.13-1-armmp-lpae with minimal config differences to
> wheezy-backports.
Yes, I tried to load many different kernel images but no luck. After 
"Starting kernel ..." nothing happens. I added the u-boot header with 
this command:

$ mkimage -A arm -O linux -T kernel -C none -a 0x00008000 -e 0x00008000 
-n "vmlinuz-3.13-1-armmp-lpae" -d vmlinuz-3.13-1-armmp-lpae uImg

Then I transferred the image with tftpboot and booted with "bootm"

## Booting kernel from Legacy Image at 02000000 ...
   Image Name:   vmlinuz-3.13-1-armmp-lpae
   Created:      2014-05-16  17:21:51 UTC
   Image Type:   ARM Linux Kernel Image (uncompressed)
   Data Size:    2785152 Bytes = 2.7 MiB
   Load Address: 00008000
   Entry Point:  00008000
   Verifying Checksum ... OK
   Loading Kernel Image ... OK
OK

Starting kernel ...

I didn't provide an initrd image or device tree blob. I think the 
version of u-boot Synology provides is not capable of booting a device 
tree enabled kernel. The source of u-boot is available in their GPL 
download, but I do not know how to make it work or what the device tree 
blob is for.

When the DS213j boots with syno kernel and initrd it looks like this:

## Booting kernel from Legacy Image at f40c0000 ...
   Image Name:   Linux-3.2.40
   Created:      2013-08-16  18:17:29 UTC
   Image Type:   ARM Linux Kernel Image (uncompressed)
   Data Size:    1860000 Bytes = 1.8 MiB
   Load Address: 00008000
   Entry Point:  00008000
   Verifying Checksum ... OK
## Loading init Ramdisk from Legacy Image at f4390000 ...
   Image Name:   synology_armada370_213j 3776
   Created:      2013-08-23  14:11:07 UTC
   Image Type:   ARM Linux RAMDisk Image (gzip compressed)
   Data Size:    2903840 Bytes = 2.8 MiB
   Load Address: 08000000
   Entry Point:  08000000
   Verifying Checksum ... OK
   Loading Kernel Image ... OK
OK

Starting kernel ...

Uncompressing Linux... done, booting the kernel.
[    0.000000] Linux version 3.2.40 (root@build4) (gcc version 4.6.4 
(Linaro GCC branch-4.6.4. Marve
ll GCC Dev 201307-2124.aa2fad08 ) ) #3776 Sat Aug 17 02:17:23 CST 2013
[    0.000000] CPU: Marvell PJ4Bv7 Processor [561f5811] revision 1 
(ARMv7), cr=18c53c7d
[    0.000000] CPU: PIPT / VIPT nonaliasing data cache, PIPT instruction 
cache
[    0.000000] Machine: Marvell Armada-370
[    0.000000] Using UBoot passing parameters structure
[    0.000000] >>>>>>>Tag MAC 00:02:02:43:50:00
[    0.000000] >>>>>>>Tag MAC 00:00:00:00:00:00
[    0.000000] Memory policy: ECC disabled, Data cache writealloc

etc.

Any ideas how to make the stock u-boot to accept a Debian kernel?

Thanks,
Alexander