Is dual booting is possible with beagle bone black just like with pc

Since the BeagleBoard Black uses u-boot it can be set up to boot kernels from several places. I have an old LinuxStamp (Atmel ARM core with 32 MB) from many years ago that I have u-boot set up to

boot from the removable SD card or using dhcp/bootp or tftp on the network along with nfs to provide the root file system for these network boot options. This is an old version of u-boot and there may be

different options or better ways to do this now but this is fairly straight forward.

This is the u-boot configuration I used, note that in this case the serial port is being used for the console terminal:

ecb_at91> printenv

bootdelay=2

baudrate=115200

ethaddr=00:00:00:00:00:5b

loadaddr=0x20200000

bootcmd=run tboot

bootfile=/srv/tftp/linux-2.6.24.3-lnst.img

netmask=255.255.255.0

hostname=lnst

ipaddr=192.168.1.51

serverip=192.168.1.11

dt_bootargs=mem=32M root=/dev/nfs nfsroot=192.168.1.11:/home/gary7/My_projects/Embedded/LinuxStamp/rootfs ip=192.168.1.51 console=ttyS0,115200n8

f_bootargs=mem=32M ip=192.168.1.51 console=ttyS0,115200n8

dboot=setenv bootargs ${dt_bootargs}; bootp; bootm 20200000

fboot=setenv bootargs ${f_bootargs}; bootm C0021840

tboot=setenv bootargs ${dt_bootargs}; tftpboot; bootm 20200000

stdin=serial

stdout=serial

stderr=serial

Commands for multi-boot environment. These are run from the u-boot prompt, in this case ecb_at91>, which is entered by pressing any key when prompted by u-boot.

Note that the bootdelay command sets the amount of time you have to press the key.

run dboot for dhcp boot (bootcmd=bootp; bootm 20200000)

run fboot for flash boot (bootcmd=bootm C021840)

run tboot for tftp boot (bootcmd=tftpboot; bootm 20200000), this is the default automatic boot (from bootcmd=run tboot)

Most of the u-boot options are fairly obvious, I will attempt to answer any questions for ones that are not so obvious. Also, I suggest reading the the u-boot

documentation at least as far as boot options and how to change/save them are concerned.

Edited to add:

If you have multiple flash devices (nand and SD card) the device will be needed to set the root path (root=) in the boot arguments.

By default, the eMMC will boot unless a SD card is inserted before with a good OS.

Clem