Re: Linux on Motorola Sandpoint/PPMC7400

I have code that initializes (some of) the sandpoint hardware -
enough to get the sandpoint to copy and gunzip stuff (code etc)
from the floppy disk to memory.  I program it into the PPMC
flash memory and use it to load a proprietary OS.  The floppy
code polls the floppy controller so I don't need to have
interrupts and DMA in the bootloader.

I also have code that knows how to initialize a couple of
different VGA cards that I use.

If someone was interested in making a more useful bootloader
for linux/sandpoint I'd look into cleaning it up (removing
the proprietary stuff) and releasing the code.

Bob.

Alex Shnitman wrote:

On Tue, Aug 29, 2000 at 12:16:09PM -0700, you wrote the following:

quoted

quoted

I downloaded the kernel and tried it. It starts booting, but it hangs
right after initializing the the OpenPIC. :-( I'll download the source
code tonight and try to look at it, although I don't have much hopes
gotta learn though.

Is there any book that you recommend to get me started? Any other
docs/tips?

Oops, I should have included the sandpoint switch settings.  For
this version of the kernel, the sandpoint switches must be set as
follows:

S4,S3: up, down
S5: down
S6: down (yours is probably up which is why it hung in openpic)

Try this and see if it helps.

It did! The kernel boots fine now all the way through.

Thanks a lot!

Another question: what would be the best way to go about booting Linux
from the flash? Would flashing the kernel in instead of the dink32
monitor do the trick, or does dink32 do some important initializations
that are needed for the kernel to boot?

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