This blog series describe the selection, set-up and usage of a development environment for Zynq.

• Part 1 – Overview
• Part 2 – Set-Up the development environment
• Part 3 – Build boot files
• Part 4 – Boot Linaro from SD Card
• Part 5 – Programmable Logic projects with Vivado
• Part 6 – Eclipse Project for register access

The following instructions use the development environment described in Part 2.

I am not interested in Desktop Linux like Ubuntu support. For  Desktop Linux at least VGA support is needed. Therefore components in Programmable Logic, an adjusted Device Tree and Kernel patches are needed. Link to a good  guide under  yet-another-guide-to-running-linaro-ubuntu-desktop-on-xilinx-zynq-on-the-zedboard

Overview of needed files

For booting from SD Card following files are needed.

• Boot.bin
  The boot file includes:
  • FSBL
    A file with the first stage boot loader
  • Bitfile
    File with code for the Program Logic
  • U-boot
    Boatloader file to load the Kernel with the device Tree
• udev.txt
  u-boot Parameter file
• Kernel
  uImage with the Linux kernel
• Device Tree
  dtb file with information about hardware system. The file is needed by the kernel
• Linux distribution
  A second partition with the Linux distribution file system

First Stage Boot Loader

Xilinx SDK use the command gmake not make. A symbolic link is needed to solve this problem.

sudo ln -s /usr/bin/make /usr/bin/gmake

Now we can start the SDK by double-clicking the icon “Xilinx SDK 2013.2”. Open the “New project” wizard with “File”=>”New”=>”Application Project” and use the following settings.

Finish the wizard and select “Project”=>”Build All” to generate the file  FSBL.elf.

I use the zedboard. For a other platform select the correct “Hardware Platform”. If your platform is missing use the Vivado export function to generate it.

Bitfile

For bitfile generaton Vivado is used. Step-by-step instructions to generate a bitfile without extra logic  can be found under http://zedboard.org/content/creating-base-zynq-design-vivado-ipi-20132.

U-boot

Open a terminal in home folder. Clone the U-boot source with

git clone git://git.xilinx.com/u-boot-xlnx.git

The U-boot version from Xilinx extract the Linux distribution from a file in RAM and boot it. We want to define the boot options in device tree. Therfore we need a “udev.txt” file.

fdt_high=0x10000000
bootcmd=fatload mmc 0 0x3000000 uImage; fatload mmc 0 0x2A00000 devicetree.dtb; bootm 0x3000000 - 0x2A00000
uenvcmd=echo "Booting SD...";boot

I want to work with DMA without usage of a device driver. Therefore I need a free memory block at the end of adress range. The device tree is loaded to memory, too. I reduce the fdt_high value so the device tree is not loaded to the end of memory address range.

The Xilinx U-Boot version is not configured for hard float. I have to change compiler flags for a successful build.

In file u-boot-xlnx/config.mk replace

PLATFORM_RELFLAGS =

with

PLATFORM_RELFLAGS =-mfloat-abi=hard -mfpu=vfpv3

It is necessary to disable the soft float flags. A search with grep -rnw ‘.’ -e “msoft” shows the file to change. In file u-boot-xlnx/arch/arm/cpu/armv7/config.mk replace

PLATFORM_RELFLAGS += -fno-common -ffixed-r8 -msoft-float

with

PLATFORM_RELFLAGS += -fno-common -ffixed-r8

I am not a makefile guru. I am sure that better solutions exists.

All is prepared for build U-boot. We need to expand the PATH variable temporary so that make find the toolchain.

PATH=$HOME/gcc-linaro-arm-linux-gnueabihf-4.8-2013.07-1_linux/bin:$PATH
export PATH

It is possible define path changes permanently by appending /etc/profile with this commands. The available configurations are listed in board.cfg. Open the file or grep lines from interest with

grep -H -r "zynq_" ./boards.cfg

I use the zedboard therefore I define the hardware with

make ARCH=arm zynq_zed_config CROSS_COMPILE=arm-linux-gnueabihf-

After hardware is configured, we build U-boot with

make ARCH=arm CROSS_COMPILE=arm-linux-gnueabihf-

Rename the result u-boot in e-boot.elf.

Boot.bin

All files needed for boot.bin are generated. We can use the Xilinx SDK to build the file. Select “Xilinx Tools”=>”Create Zynq Boot Image” and select your files. Press “Create Image” to buid it.

Another way is to use the bootgen without the gui. You can find a desktop script and the for bootgen needed bif file in buildBoot_bin.

Kernel

Open a terminal in home folder. Clone the U-boot source with

git clone git://git.xilinx.com/linux-xlnx.git

Change directory to the new folder linux-xlnx.

Print the PATH variable with command

echo $PATH

For building a uImage mkimage is needed. mkimage is part of U-Boot. We need to define the path so make can find it. If the toolchain is not part of the PATH variable anymore insert it again.

PATH=$HOME/gcc-linaro-arm-linux-gnueabihf-4.8-2013.07-1_linux/bin:$PATH
PATH=$PATH:$HOME/u-boot-xlnx/tools
export PATH

The available configs are listed in arch/arm/configs. Vor Zynq I use xilinx_zynq_defconfig.

make ARCH=arm xilinx_zynq_defconfig CROSS_COMPILE=arm-linux-gnueabihf-

Now we can build the uImage

make ARCH=arm  UIMAGE_LOADADDR=0x8000 uImage CROSS_COMPILE=arm-linux-gnueabihf-

The uImage is located in /arch/arm/boot

Device Tree

Examples for device tree files are located under arch/arm/boot/dts in Kernel sources. I use zynq-zed.dts for Zedboard. I want to boot the Linux distribution from a partition. Therefore I change the bootargs to

bootargs = "console=ttyPS0,115200 root=/dev/mmcblk0p2 rw earlyprintk rootfstype=ext4 rootwait devtmpfs.mount=0 --no-log";

This change only work with the modified U-boot.

I want to use a part of memory for a DMA without driver support. Therefore I reduce the memory managed by Linux

ps7_ddr_0: memory@0 {
device_type = "memory";
reg = < 0x0 0x18000000 >;
} ;

For booting the dts file have to be converted in a dtb file. The kernel tool dtc is used for that. I write shellscripts for dts to dtb and  back. All files in the defined folder are converted. Download dts_dtb