Subject: Re: [E3-hacking] Just got an e3 - where do I start

From: Antony Stone <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 17 Oct 2012 18:03:15 +0100

On Wednesday 17 October 2012 at 17:21, Jake wrote:

> The 5.1 PBL requires a handshake first ( as previously discussed on list )
> of the aforementioned key as a blob. Once it gets that, the old flashing
> commands are all available..
> I think I actually posted the sig of the key on list ?

On Wednesday 17 October 2012 at 17:34, Jake wrote:

> Yup, I did..
> We even know the plaintext length: 392 bytes ..

For anyone searching for a link to this, I assume it's 
http://www.earth.li/pipermail/e3-hacking/2008-January/000795.html

Regards,

Antony.

-- 
In the Beginning there was nothing, which exploded.

 - Terry Pratchett

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From: Edward Robbins <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 26 Oct 2012 00:22:54 +0100

To bring this discussion back round to the original topic, now that I
have an e3 setup how do I go about getting it to boot?

I've got a serial going with an inverter, I know I can use pbltool to
flash an image to the NAND, and I'm happy building a kernel for it. So
as far as I can tell my next steps are to use the resources at
http://the.earth.li/pub/e3/ to flash the kernel, a bootloader, and
some fs.

Still, the way forward seems a little hazy, at least without reading
the last 6 years worth of mailing list archives. As far as I can tell,
there are a couple of ways to boot:

- use pbltool with a script to flash uboot, kernel, initrd. Not sure
if script needs to be modified for kernel/initrd size or if the kernel
will then just happily boot after every reset unattended.
- use pbltool to flash !LDR, uboot, kernel and initrd. Not sure if I
need to first boot a (possibly very old) system to flash !LDR or if it
can be done using pbltool
- flash !LDR, kernel and initrd, without uboot.

In any case, I am still unsure about a few things

- can I use pbltool to do the flashing in any of those scenarios, or
do I need something else?
- are the versions of pbltool and !LDR at the link I posted the latest?
- will I need to modify the kernel to have the correct NAND partition
offsets for my kernel etc? Is there a specific address PBL looks to
boot from?
- how do you set kernel parameters etc? Does uboot give its normal
boot prompt to framebuffer/serial?

Sorry for all the newbie questions!
Best,
Ed

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From: Edward Robbins <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 26 Oct 2012 15:18:43 +0100

I've been reading the mailing list a lot today and think I can proceed
now. Will give it a go next week and post if I have any more
questions, or get stuck!

Cheers,
Ed