Unable to Bring up Linux Kernel

Question

Hello,

I have a Microzed I'm trying to bring up Linux on. I have a boot.bin on a SD card. I've compiled a custom fsbl, u-boot, kernel, dts/dtb, and sd partition with a linux distro.

The thing that is baffles me is that once the kernel is loaded from u-boot, and the bootm command is issued, it goes quiet. With a premade kernel (the one from wind river) it at least boots some before getting to "bootconsole [earlycon0] disabled." They both are using the same dts/dtb too.

The thing that really gets me is that I follow the Xilinx wiki articles on this and have done it before with a zc706 and brought every up just fine. But for some reason the kernel is giving me grief which was the easiest thing out of what I did before with the zc706.

I have scripts to build everything since I find that's the easiest way to do things (and most consistent). What I have for the kernel is:

. /opt/xilinx/SDK/2016.2/settings64.sh
export PATH=../u-boot-xlnx/tools:$PATH
export ARCH=arm
export CROSS_COMPILE=arm-xilinx-linux-gnueabi-
make clean
make ARCH=arm xilinx_zynq_defconfig
#make ARCH=arm menuconfig
make ARCH=arm -j 16 UIMAGE_LOADADDR=0x8000 uImage

I've tried changing some stuff around in menuconfig but I haven't gotten anywhere. I've rebuild the fsbl and haven't had any luck either. Any ideas?

Thanks

edit: yes, I have earlyprintk in the dts bootargs

zedhed · Accepted Answer

Hello bwoods288,

Do you know which release tag of the source code you are using? If development and patches are happening in HEAD, then it is very possible that the latest and greatest kernel source on the Xilinx Github is a bit broken.

Have you tried using the MicroZed PetaLinux BSP with Xilinx PetaLinux tools as a reference for building the kernel? If going that route works for getting a working kernel, then it gives you a reference point (and a kernel release tag) that you can reuse for your scripted flow. Once you have the working reference point, then you would also have the option work forward to an even newer version of the kernel if desired.

Regards,

-Kevin