Need help Understanding initial memory conditions.
David H. Lynch Jr.
dhlii at dlasys.net
Wed Oct 19 05:15:14 EST 2005
Kalle Pokki wrote:
> David H. Lynch Jr wrote:
>
>> What exactly is the minimal startup system state the Linux 2.6.13
>> Kernel expects ?
>
>
> It's pretty hard to describe the system state fully, as there are so
> many registers it may depend on. However, I can point out a few things
> from your setup:
>
> 1. Put RAM to 0x0000000 and flash to some location it mirrors to your
> boot vector. Linux always expects your physical memory to be at zero.
> It is then mapped to virtual address 0xC0000000.
In both this list and elsewhere I have seen several references to
the difficulty setting up Linux with a physical RAM base other than 0x0.
I was hoping that I could bypass that by re-arranging physical memory
using the BAT's or MMU.
I am gathering that while this is possible, that it not sufficient. That
if memory is re-arranged after power-on it has to be done by something
Linux is not aware of.
>
> 2. You don't need to have MMU enabled.
There is a god. I am a compitent developer with lots of low level
experience, but I have thus far completely missed out on both PPC
assembler and memory management.
>
> 3. Make sure your boot arguments are passed properly to the kernel.
> This includes the settings in registers r3 ... r7 and the bd_info
> structure . There are many variants of that structure, make sure you
> use the same ones in the boot loader and in Linux.
That I should have no problem with.
>
>
Thank You very much
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