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

[Edward Robbins]

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

On Fri, Oct 26, 2012 at 12:22 AM, Edward Robbins
<edd.robbins at googlemail.com> wrote:
> 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