Ubuntu - the board does not boot from provided BOOT.bin

Hi,

If you aren't getting the blue LED, then the first stage loader is not even able to program the PL with the bitstream, and that is very early on in the boot process and has nothing to do with Ubuntu.  So let's isolate on the boot process to see if we can get that working.

Just to be 100% sure, I downloaded the Ubuntu 2014.4 package for the 7z100 and installed only the BOOT.BIN file on the SD card.  It loads the FPGA correctly, and on the serial console U-boot runs and ends at the command line when it fails to locate a boot image.  Again, exactly the operation I would expect with only the BOOT.BIN in place.

So let's get the board booting first and not worry about Ubuntu.  

1)  You should be using the BOOT.BIN from the sd_card folder in the downloaded package, not one you have generated.

2)  For this test, you only need connect the power and the USB serial line.  We only care about programming the FPGA and seeing serial output.   The switch block must be set to OFF:OFF:ON:ON:OFF (where ON is towards the Zynq device) to boot from microSD.

3)  Some SD cards are not compatible with Zynq.  Are you using the same microSD card for the successful OOB boot as you are using for the Ubuntu test?  If not, try booting the OOB design using the Ubuntu card.  Perhaps the microSD is the issue.

4) Validate that your BOOT.BIN file is not corrupt.    I ran an MD5 checksum on BOOT.BIN only and the result is:

CD95C9C7A8F1316A63EC9D1AA9F8E8E4

Using this procedure, when you switch on power, the blue DONE LED on the board should illuminate almost immediately, and you should see the U-boot countdown on the serial terminal.   U-boot will fail to find any other files on the card, and so will print an error and end at the prompt.  You can interact with U-boot through the serial console at this point.

Let me know what happens.

Ron

Hi,

If you aren't getting the blue LED, then the first stage loader is not even able to program the PL with the bitstream, and that is very early on in the boot process and has nothing to do with Ubuntu.  So let's isolate on the boot process to see if we can get that working.

Just to be 100% sure, I downloaded the Ubuntu 2014.4 package for the 7z100 and installed only the BOOT.BIN file on the SD card.  It loads the FPGA correctly, and on the serial console U-boot runs and ends at the command line when it fails to locate a boot image.  Again, exactly the operation I would expect with only the BOOT.BIN in place.

So let's get the board booting first and not worry about Ubuntu.  

1)  You should be using the BOOT.BIN from the sd_card folder in the downloaded package, not one you have generated.

2)  For this test, you only need connect the power and the USB serial line.  We only care about programming the FPGA and seeing serial output.   The switch block must be set to OFF:OFF:ON:ON:OFF (where ON is towards the Zynq device) to boot from microSD.

3)  Some SD cards are not compatible with Zynq.  Are you using the same microSD card for the successful OOB boot as you are using for the Ubuntu test?  If not, try booting the OOB design using the Ubuntu card.  Perhaps the microSD is the issue.

4) Validate that your BOOT.BIN file is not corrupt.    I ran an MD5 checksum on BOOT.BIN only and the result is:

CD95C9C7A8F1316A63EC9D1AA9F8E8E4

Using this procedure, when you switch on power, the blue DONE LED on the board should illuminate almost immediately, and you should see the U-boot countdown on the serial terminal.   U-boot will fail to find any other files on the card, and so will print an error and end at the prompt.  You can interact with U-boot through the serial console at this point.

Let me know what happens.

Ron

Hi,

thank you for your fast response. I now donu00B4t have the opportunity to test your approach, but I already had similar testing approaches.
My setup is the following:
1) The board has got power, all 8 green LEDs are illuminated and the USB UART is connected to my host computer. Nothing else is attached.
2) The boot switch is set to sd boot mode, 00110, just as you described.
3) The sdcard is partitioned according to the tutorial. 4MB unallocated, 400MB FAT32, remaining space ext4 partition. The card has a capacity of 4GB and was partitioned using gparted.
4) Just the BOOT.BIN from the OOB archive (Zynq Mini-ITX 7Z100 Out-of-Box Linux v2013.4) is copied to the FAT32 partition. md5sum: bd1df2ae8e8faff6252ec270b38a0760

The board is powered up, blue LED lights up and I get a prompt at the terminal screen as you described.

Then I replace on the same sdcard the BOOT.BIN file, with the BOOT.BIN from the Ubuntu archive (Zynq Mini-ITX 7Z100 Ubuntu v2014.4). md5sum: cd95c9c7a8f1316a63ec9d1aa9f8e8e4

And the board does not boot up, no LED, no terminal screen activity.

This is already the second sdcard I was testing this with. At first I tried a 32 GB class 10 card, but not even the OOB BOOT.BIN booted from it. Then I tried the 4 GB card and at least the OOB image was booting.

I kind of have the feeling, the sdcard might be the problem here. Maybe the way it was partitioned. Now I found this article: http://www.wiki.xilinx.com/Prepare+Boot+Medium
I will try it according to it, not with gparted.
There is also the approach to mark the first partition with a boot flag, I could try it also. But that does not explain, why the one BOOT.BIN does boot up and the other one doesnu00B4t.
And maybe try a third sdcard.

What kind of sdcard have you been using and how did you partioned it?

I will post as soon as I have some news.
Thank you for your time
Andrej