Hello,

I’m having trouble getting U-boot (based on 1.3.0) to boot a MV Pro 5.0 (based on 2.6.18) kernel image with a large built-in initramfs on the PPC440 Taishan eval board.  The boot process hangs after the output of “Finalizing device tree…”  I’m attempting to boot the cuImage target.

I’ve made modifications to U-boot for preparations for our own PPC440 design.  One of the changes was to the file ../lib_ppc/board.c to remove the logic that forces the command line and bd_info structure into the first 8 MB of memory.  However, that didn’t help.

I can boot the kernel image if it’s built without the initramfs.  That is, I can get past this hang scenario.  Obviously things aren’t all that great without out an initramfs or initrd but it seems to prove that the built kernel and my U-boot modifications fundamentally works and leads me to believe the problem is related to the initramfs or its size.

Does anybody have any experience using a kernel+initramfs that is larger than 8MB?  Larger than 16MB?

Any help/comments would be greatly appreciated.

Bill T.

Boot progress 80 (0x50)

Using ppc_4xx_eth0 device

TFTP from server 10.10.5.112; our IP address is 10.10.5.207

Filename 'cuImage.taishan3'.

Load address: 0x8000000

Loading: ##############################################################.

 ….

done

Bytes transferred = 25962438 (18c27c6 hex)

Boot progress 81 (0x51)

Boot progress 84 (0x54)

Boot progress 1 (0x1)

## Booting image at 08000000 ...

Boot progress 2 (0x2)

Boot progress 3 (0x3)

   Image Name:   Linux-2.6.18_pro500-440gx_taisha

   Image Type:   PowerPC Linux Kernel Image (gzip compressed)

   Data Size:    25962374 Bytes = 24.8 MB

   Load Address: 01c00000

   Entry Point:  01c0040c

   Verifying Checksum ... OK

Boot progress 4 (0x4)

Boot progress 5 (0x5)

Boot progress 6 (0x6)

   Uncompressing Kernel Image ... OK

Boot progress 7 (0x7)

Boot progress 8 (0x8)

## Current stack ends at 0x0FEBE180 => set upper limit to 0x0FEBD980

## cmdline at 0x0FEBD880 ... 0x0FEBD8DE

Boot progress 14 (0xe)

No initrd

## Transferring control to Linux (at address 01c0040c) ...

Boot progress 15 (0xf)

Calling kernel(0x1c0040c): (0febd7d0, 00000000, 00000000, 0febd880, 0febd8de)

CPU clock-frequency <- 0x2f34f600 (792MHz)

CPU timebase-frequency <- 0x2f34f600 (792MHz)

/plb: clock-frequency <- bcd3d80 (198MHz)

/plb/opb: clock-frequency <- 3ef1480 (66MHz)

/plb/opb/ebc: clock-frequency <- 3ef1480 (66MHz)

/plb/opb/serial@40000200: clock-frequency <- a8c000 (11MHz)

/plb/opb/serial@40000300: clock-frequency <- a8c000 (11MHz)

Memory <- <0x0 0x0 0x10000000> (256MB)

ENET0: local-mac-address <- 02:0c:4f:35:00:16

ENET1: local-mac-address <- 31:2e:32:00:55:2d

zImage starting: loaded at 0x01c00000 (sp: 0x03732ed0)

Allocating 0x1b27ea4 bytes for kernel ...

gunzipping (0x00000000 <- 0x01c0e000:0x03731378)...done 0x1afa0c0 bytes

Linux/PowerPC load: ip=10.10.5.207:10.10.5.112:10.10.5.1:255.255.255.0:eval1:eth0:off panic=1 console=ttyS1,115200

Finalizing device tree... flat tree at 0x373f3a0