After creating a new SD card from the original images the system won't boot.
Following problems are common:

• You get a kernel panic with "no init found" message.
• Using apt-get upgrade or similar gives you error messages like this "fopen: permission denied".

Most probably you have messed up permissions of your rootfs during copying. Please follow this Howto:
http://www.armbedded.eu/node/370

The NanosG20 uses the WAKEUP/SHUTDOWN mask of the AT91SAM9G20 microcontroller. On a regular shutdown the enable pin of the power regulator is toggeled and can be switched back by WAKEUP. WAKEUP is connected to the switch on your NanosG20. On a regular shutdown, you have to press the switch to boot your Nanos. On failure the Nanos would boot without the switch. The register settings for WAKEUP/SHUTDOWN are battery backed-up. So they persist between reboots and connecting or disconnecting the power cable, when a battery is connected.
So, when your NanosG20 does not boot:

• First make sure, that the your power adaptor is connected with X14 between the DSUB-9 connectors. If you connect via the USB-Device port X7, J9 has to be set. Please guard not connecting both connectors at a time, when J9 is set
• Press the switch to boot your device. If you keep the switch pressed, you will end in the boot menu.
• The WAKEUP/SHUTDOWN mimic is locked. This can happen, if you changed the battery or battery current was interrupted. Disconnect the power adaptor. Disconnect the battery, e.g. with a slip of paper. Connect the power adaptor again and remove then the slip of paper. Your Nanos should boot now.
• If this mimic does not fit your application, you can use J5 to disable this feature altogether.

Have a look at Howto:
http://www.armbedded.eu/node/372

Yes you can. With the help of this freeware EXT2 IFS ext2 or ext3 formatted partitions can by accessed with all Microsoft Windows operating systems.
It is available for download here:
http://www.fs-driver.org/

Description

The processor core of the AT91Sam9261 is operating at 1.8V. The peripherals like flash and SDRAM are operating at 3.3V. During power-up 1.8V are already stable and the processor core starts, but the peripherals aren't ready yet, so the system crashes. Actually, as the watchdog is enabled by default, the system will start after the watchdog timeout, which is 16 seconds, in a sane state.

Solution

This problem is solved by setting the reset register in the processor to user reset and insert a timeout before starting the core after the core voltage is stable. This is done before booting Linux, have a look at the setreset environment variable in u-boot. This register is battery backed-up, so it be will kept during power failures. There are three situations however, when this is not the case:

• When the module was removed from the board
• When the bootloader was newly flashed
• When the battery was empty and replaced with a new one

When one of this situation occurs, you have to wait until the watchdog timeout or disconnect the battery temporarily, e.g. with a slip of paper between battery and connector.

If there is no battery the register doesn't need to be set as the settling time of the slowclock oscillator will guarantee a sane start of the board.

Caveat

If you own a revision of the Panel-Card below four, the manual reset is not needed and won't work. You find the revision number of your board on the LCD-Side of the Panel-Card, like 16.103.4 for revision four or 16.103.3 for revision three.

Busybox is not capable of mounting NFS shares with locking enabled. Use the option -o nolock for NFS mounts.

This tar archive contains a simple tool providing reading and writing at physical addresses under Linux. Source code as well as binaries for OABI and EABI are included.

The Portux-Panel-PC has an inductive buzzer, which is connected to processor pin PB06. It can be used by programming a 2KHz PWM signal on Pin PB06. How this can be done is demonstrated in this example program:
http://www.armbedded.eu/download/software/buzzer-portuxpp.tar.gz

Busybox is not capable of mounting NFS shares with locking enabled. Use the option -o nolock for NFS mounts.

This tar archive contains a simple tool providing reading and writing at physical addresses under Linux. Source code as well as binaries for OABI and EABI are included.

On Portux920TEU and PortuxG20 the first serial port includes two USARTs: A regular USART with the signals RX/TX and RTS/CTS and a debug UART (DBGU) with it's RX/TX on the regular signals DTR/DSR. Thus the DBGU-Adapter is needed to switch the signals DTR/DSR to RX/TX on your null modem cable.
The DBGU-Adapter is part of the Starterkit, just connect it between the serial port of your Portux and the null modem cable and you will see the console output of Linux on your serial port.

Busybox is not capable of mounting NFS shares with locking enabled. Use the option -o nolock for NFS mounts.

You can use a CR1632FH-LF of the swiss company renata batteries with soldering tails.

This tar archive contains a simple tool providing reading and writing at physical addresses under Linux. Source code as well as binaries for OABI and EABI are included.

Downloading http://www.angstrom-distribution.org/feeds/2008/ipk/glibc/armv5te/base/P...
Downloading http://www.angstrom-distribution.org/feeds/2008/ipk/glibc/armv5te/debug/...
Downloading http://www.angstrom-distribution.org/feeds/2008/ipk/glibc/armv5te/gstrea...
Downloading http://www.angstrom-distribution.org/feeds/2008/ipk/glibc//all/Packages.gz
Downloading http://www.angstrom-distribution.org/feeds/2008/ipk/glibc/armv5te/perl/P...
Downloading http://www.angstrom-distribution.org/feeds/2008/ipk/glibc/armv5te/python...
Downloading http://www.angstrom-distribution.org/feeds/2008/ipk/glibc/armv5te/machin...
Collected errors:
 * Failed to download http://www.angstrom-distribution.org/feeds/2008/ipk/glibc/armv5te/base/P.... 
error detail: HTTP response code said error
 * Failed to download http://www.angstrom-distribution.org/feeds/2008/ipk/glibc/armv5te/debug/.... 
error detail: HTTP response code said error
 * Failed to download http://www.angstrom-distribution.org/feeds/2008/ipk/glibc/armv5te/gstrea.... 
error detail: HTTP response code said error
 * Failed to download http://www.angstrom-distribution.org/feeds/2008/ipk/glibc//all/Packages.gz. 
error detail: HTTP response code said error
 * Failed to download http://www.angstrom-distribution.org/feeds/2008/ipk/glibc/armv5te/perl/P.... 
error detail: HTTP response code said error
 * Failed to download http://www.angstrom-distribution.org/feeds/2008/ipk/glibc/armv5te/python.... 
error detail: HTTP response code said error
 * Failed to download http://www.angstrom-distribution.org/feeds/2008/ipk/glibc/armv5te/machin.... 
error detail: HTTP response code said error

The problem here is that the default rootfs of the Stamp9G20 and PortuxG20 uses the Ångström Distribution 2008 but this version is discontinued so all packages have been removed from the servers.

Possible Solutions:

• Replace the 2008 with 2011.03 in all config files in /etc/opkg and upgrade to this newer version (opkg update and opkg upgrade). Be aware that this is unsafe and can result in a completely unusable system as opkg is not prepared for such major updates.
• Cherry pick packages from http://www.angstrom-distribution.org/feeds/2011.03 and install the manually (you have to resolve dependencies yourself). Either use wget to download and then install with opkg or give the direct URL to opkg. Using wget has the advantage, that you do not have to redownload a file if opkg notices missing dependencies. This option is much safer than the previous because you have complete control over what is installed and in which order.
• If you have a current Starterkit-CD you can also try to use the rootfs from the Stamp9G45. It uses a newer version of Ångström which does not have the problem.

After creating a new SD card from the original images the system won't boot.
Following problems are common:

• You get a kernel panic with "no init found" message.
• Using apt-get upgrade or similar gives you error messages like this "fopen: permission denied".

Most probably you have messed up permissions of your rootfs during copying. Please follow this Howto:
http://www.armbedded.eu/node/370

The toolchain comes with the package manager opkg. You can install the same packages as on the target device with it. To do so, follow these steps:

1. Become root using su or sudo on your development computer
2. Edit the file /usr/local/angstrom/arm/arm-angstrom-linux-gnueabi/etc/opkg.conf. It should look like that:
   

   arch all 1
   arch any 6
   arch noarch 11
   arch arm 16
   arch armv4 21
   arch armv4t 26
   arch armv5te 31
   src/gz base http://www.angstrom-distribution.org/feeds/2008/ipk/glibc/armv5te/base
   src/gz debug http://www.angstrom-distribution.org/feeds/2008/ipk/glibc/armv5te/debug
   src/gz gstreamer http://www.angstrom-distribution.org/feeds/2008/ipk/glibc/armv5te/gstreamer
   src/gz no-arch http://www.angstrom-distribution.org/feeds/2008/ipk/glibc//all
   src/gz perl http://www.angstrom-distribution.org/feeds/2008/ipk/glibc/armv5te/perl
   src/gz python http://www.angstrom-distribution.org/feeds/2008/ipk/glibc/armv5te/python

   All other lines can be removed or commented.

3. Execute the command source /usr/local/angstrom/arm/environment-setup
4. You can now use the command opkg-target as on the target. So you first need to run opkg-target update and after that you can install the needed packages, most probably the -dev versions to get the header files.

From now on, every time you want to install a new package, repeat steps 1, 3 and 4.

Have a look at Howto:
http://www.armbedded.eu/node/372

To compile bootstrap yourself the following steps have to be done:
1) You need an arm-gcc standalone compiler. The delivered arm-linux-gcc won't work for that task. Good ones are obtainable at http://www.codesourcery.com/
2) Extract the archive from your CD or from our download section (http://www.armbedded.eu/downloads) on your development PC. Change to that directory.
3) Edit the Makefile in the directory at91bootstrap to point the variable CROSS_COMPILE to your installed stand-alone cross-compiler, e.g.:

CROSS_COMPILE=/develop/arm-2008q3/bin/arm-none-eabi-

4) Now issue make in the at91bootstrap directory with the following options:

	make CHIP=at91sam9g20   BOARD=at91sam9g20-ek   ORIGIN=nandflash   DESTINATION=sdram   BIN_SIZE=0x30000   FROM_ADDR=0x20000   DEST_ADDR=0x23F00000   OP_BOOTSTRAP=on STR_DESCR=\\\"appli\\\" TRACE_LEVEL=1

5) Now you find your binary in at91bootstrap/bin directory:

boot-at91sam9g20-ek-nandflash2sdram.bin

. Bootstrap has to be flashed via SAM-BA. It cannot be flashed with u-boot or linux. To do that see this how-to: http://www.armbedded.eu/node/8

On Portux920TEU and PortuxG20 the first serial port includes two USARTs: A regular USART with the signals RX/TX and RTS/CTS and a debug UART (DBGU) with it's RX/TX on the regular signals DTR/DSR. Thus the DBGU-Adapter is needed to switch the signals DTR/DSR to RX/TX on your null modem cable.
The DBGU-Adapter is part of the Starterkit, just connect it between the serial port of your Portux and the null modem cable and you will see the console output of Linux on your serial port.

Some files in /var are located in RAM and must be recreated on every boot. Additionally /tmp is a symlink to /var/tmp. The files in /etc/default/volatile/ describe, which files, directories or symlinks have to be created. To speed up the boot, a file called /etc/volatile.cache is created. In the event of an unclean shutdown, this file might get corrupted and the creation of these files might not work. To resolve this issue simply delete /etc/volatile.cache.

This happens because NAND flash can have bad blocks. Every program not able to handle bad blocks can trigger messages like that. This is not a real problem with the flash, just with the application.

While booting the offending application is udev. It scans each block device for partitions including the MTD partitions. If the MTD partition has a bad block in the scanning region, the read will fail and this message is printed. To work around it, you can skip the scan for mtd devices by editing the file /etc/udev/rules.d/60-persistent-storage.rules. Replace the line

KERNEL=="ram*|loop*|fd*|nbd*|gnbd*|dm-*|md*", GOTO="persistent_storage_end"

with

KERNEL=="ram*|loop*|fd*|nbd*|gnbd*|dm-*|md*|mtd*", GOTO="persistent_storage_end"

and the messages should go away.

Busybox is not capable of mounting NFS shares with locking enabled. Use the option -o nolock for NFS mounts.

This tar archive contains a simple tool providing reading and writing at physical addresses under Linux. Source code as well as binaries for OABI and EABI are included.

Description

The processor core of the AT91Sam9261 is operating at 1.8V. The peripherals like flash and SDRAM are operating at 3.3V. During power-up 1.8V are already stable and the processor core starts, but the peripherals aren't ready yet, so the system crashes. Actually, as the watchdog is enabled by default, the system will start after the watchdog timeout, which is 16 seconds, in a sane state.

Solution

This problem is solved by setting the reset register in the processor to user reset and insert a timeout before starting the core after the core voltage is stable. This is done before booting Linux, have a look at the setreset environment variable in u-boot. This register is battery backed-up, so it be will kept during power failures. There are three situations however, when this is not the case:

• When the module was removed from the board
• When the bootloader was newly flashed
• When the battery was empty and replaced with a new one

When one of this situation occurs, you have to wait until the watchdog timeout or disconnect the battery temporarily, e.g. with a slip of paper between battery and connector.

If there is no battery the register doesn't need to be set as the settling time of the slowclock oscillator will guarantee a sane start of the board.

Caveat

If you own a revision of the Panel-Card below four, the manual reset is not needed and won't work. You find the revision number of your board on the LCD-Side of the Panel-Card, like 16.103.4 for revision four or 16.103.3 for revision three.

Busybox is not capable of mounting NFS shares with locking enabled. Use the option -o nolock for NFS mounts.

This tar archive contains a simple tool providing reading and writing at physical addresses under Linux. Source code as well as binaries for OABI and EABI are included.

Downloading http://www.angstrom-distribution.org/feeds/2008/ipk/glibc/armv5te/base/P...
Downloading http://www.angstrom-distribution.org/feeds/2008/ipk/glibc/armv5te/debug/...
Downloading http://www.angstrom-distribution.org/feeds/2008/ipk/glibc/armv5te/gstrea...
Downloading http://www.angstrom-distribution.org/feeds/2008/ipk/glibc//all/Packages.gz
Downloading http://www.angstrom-distribution.org/feeds/2008/ipk/glibc/armv5te/perl/P...
Downloading http://www.angstrom-distribution.org/feeds/2008/ipk/glibc/armv5te/python...
Downloading http://www.angstrom-distribution.org/feeds/2008/ipk/glibc/armv5te/machin...
Collected errors:
 * Failed to download http://www.angstrom-distribution.org/feeds/2008/ipk/glibc/armv5te/base/P.... 
error detail: HTTP response code said error
 * Failed to download http://www.angstrom-distribution.org/feeds/2008/ipk/glibc/armv5te/debug/.... 
error detail: HTTP response code said error
 * Failed to download http://www.angstrom-distribution.org/feeds/2008/ipk/glibc/armv5te/gstrea.... 
error detail: HTTP response code said error
 * Failed to download http://www.angstrom-distribution.org/feeds/2008/ipk/glibc//all/Packages.gz. 
error detail: HTTP response code said error
 * Failed to download http://www.angstrom-distribution.org/feeds/2008/ipk/glibc/armv5te/perl/P.... 
error detail: HTTP response code said error
 * Failed to download http://www.angstrom-distribution.org/feeds/2008/ipk/glibc/armv5te/python.... 
error detail: HTTP response code said error
 * Failed to download http://www.angstrom-distribution.org/feeds/2008/ipk/glibc/armv5te/machin.... 
error detail: HTTP response code said error

The problem here is that the default rootfs of the Stamp9G20 and PortuxG20 uses the Ångström Distribution 2008 but this version is discontinued so all packages have been removed from the servers.

Possible Solutions:

• Replace the 2008 with 2011.03 in all config files in /etc/opkg and upgrade to this newer version (opkg update and opkg upgrade). Be aware that this is unsafe and can result in a completely unusable system as opkg is not prepared for such major updates.
• Cherry pick packages from http://www.angstrom-distribution.org/feeds/2011.03 and install the manually (you have to resolve dependencies yourself). Either use wget to download and then install with opkg or give the direct URL to opkg. Using wget has the advantage, that you do not have to redownload a file if opkg notices missing dependencies. This option is much safer than the previous because you have complete control over what is installed and in which order.
• If you have a current Starterkit-CD you can also try to use the rootfs from the Stamp9G45. It uses a newer version of Ångström which does not have the problem.

After creating a new SD card from the original images the system won't boot.
Following problems are common:

• You get a kernel panic with "no init found" message.
• Using apt-get upgrade or similar gives you error messages like this "fopen: permission denied".

Most probably you have messed up permissions of your rootfs during copying. Please follow this Howto:
http://www.armbedded.eu/node/370

The toolchain comes with the package manager opkg. You can install the same packages as on the target device with it. To do so, follow these steps:

1. Become root using su or sudo on your development computer
2. Edit the file /usr/local/angstrom/arm/arm-angstrom-linux-gnueabi/etc/opkg.conf. It should look like that:
   

   arch all 1
   arch any 6
   arch noarch 11
   arch arm 16
   arch armv4 21
   arch armv4t 26
   arch armv5te 31
   src/gz base http://www.angstrom-distribution.org/feeds/2008/ipk/glibc/armv5te/base
   src/gz debug http://www.angstrom-distribution.org/feeds/2008/ipk/glibc/armv5te/debug
   src/gz gstreamer http://www.angstrom-distribution.org/feeds/2008/ipk/glibc/armv5te/gstreamer
   src/gz no-arch http://www.angstrom-distribution.org/feeds/2008/ipk/glibc//all
   src/gz perl http://www.angstrom-distribution.org/feeds/2008/ipk/glibc/armv5te/perl
   src/gz python http://www.angstrom-distribution.org/feeds/2008/ipk/glibc/armv5te/python

   All other lines can be removed or commented.

3. Execute the command source /usr/local/angstrom/arm/environment-setup
4. You can now use the command opkg-target as on the target. So you first need to run opkg-target update and after that you can install the needed packages, most probably the -dev versions to get the header files.

From now on, every time you want to install a new package, repeat steps 1, 3 and 4.

Have a look at Howto:
http://www.armbedded.eu/node/372

To compile bootstrap yourself the following steps have to be done:
1) You need an arm-gcc standalone compiler. The delivered arm-linux-gcc won't work for that task. Good ones are obtainable at http://www.codesourcery.com/
2) Extract the archive from your CD or from our download section (http://www.armbedded.eu/downloads) on your development PC. Change to that directory.
3) Edit the Makefile in the directory at91bootstrap to point the variable CROSS_COMPILE to your installed stand-alone cross-compiler, e.g.:

CROSS_COMPILE=/develop/arm-2008q3/bin/arm-none-eabi-

4) Now issue make in the at91bootstrap directory with the following options:

	make CHIP=at91sam9g20   BOARD=at91sam9g20-ek   ORIGIN=nandflash   DESTINATION=sdram   BIN_SIZE=0x30000   FROM_ADDR=0x20000   DEST_ADDR=0x23F00000   OP_BOOTSTRAP=on STR_DESCR=\\\"appli\\\" TRACE_LEVEL=1

5) Now you find your binary in at91bootstrap/bin directory:

boot-at91sam9g20-ek-nandflash2sdram.bin

. Bootstrap has to be flashed via SAM-BA. It cannot be flashed with u-boot or linux. To do that see this how-to: http://www.armbedded.eu/node/8

Some files in /var are located in RAM and must be recreated on every boot. Additionally /tmp is a symlink to /var/tmp. The files in /etc/default/volatile/ describe, which files, directories or symlinks have to be created. To speed up the boot, a file called /etc/volatile.cache is created. In the event of an unclean shutdown, this file might get corrupted and the creation of these files might not work. To resolve this issue simply delete /etc/volatile.cache.

This happens because NAND flash can have bad blocks. Every program not able to handle bad blocks can trigger messages like that. This is not a real problem with the flash, just with the application.

While booting the offending application is udev. It scans each block device for partitions including the MTD partitions. If the MTD partition has a bad block in the scanning region, the read will fail and this message is printed. To work around it, you can skip the scan for mtd devices by editing the file /etc/udev/rules.d/60-persistent-storage.rules. Replace the line

KERNEL=="ram*|loop*|fd*|nbd*|gnbd*|dm-*|md*", GOTO="persistent_storage_end"

with

KERNEL=="ram*|loop*|fd*|nbd*|gnbd*|dm-*|md*|mtd*", GOTO="persistent_storage_end"

and the messages should go away.

Busybox is not capable of mounting NFS shares with locking enabled. Use the option -o nolock for NFS mounts.

This tar archive contains a simple tool providing reading and writing at physical addresses under Linux. Source code as well as binaries for OABI and EABI are included.