SD Card Boot Process Questions


DoubleDash

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Joined
Jan 30, 2011
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122
Last night I downloaded the latest rootfs from http://openpandora.org/firmware/ (pandora-rootfs.tar.bz2).


The first time I extracted it out overwriting the last rootfs extract, bad idea I think! I say this because some files left over must have caused the login process from the previous install to linger on, instead of the first boot process starting! This caused repeated failures of the login using previous login details, making it just cycle round and round!


After completely removing the previous install directories, and my previous "bollocks" development toolchain :( , I unzipped as per wiki instructions (sudo tar -xvjf <tarfile>.tar.bz2 -C <SD card>). No problem here, in fact the first boot and install worked flawlessly.


Post rootfs extract and pre SD card booting, I did notice one thing though. My old 'boot.txt' file was left intact (I think!) by the rootfs extract and pointed to \boot\uImage-2.6.27.46-omap1. However, after the extract I noticed that the file contained in the \boot directory was actually called something like 'vmlinux-2.6.27.46-omap1'. I was interested to know what would happen when 'boot.txt' pointed to a file that did not exist!


I expected the boot from SD card to a)fail or b)for the NAND OS to be run or c)for the NAND kernel to be used. The HF5 RC2 install to SD card process began, and appeared to work :)


Furthermore, the original file \boot\vmlinux-2.6.27.46-omap1 had disappeared and was now called \boot\uImage-2.6.27.46-omap1.


So I suppose I have a few questions arising from this unexpected behaviour:


1. Was the NAND kernal used?


2. Was HF5 RC2 properly installed? It appeared on the boot up screen and the full 'about to open pandora's box' initial setup process ran ok.


3. How was the problem of the 'vmlinux...omap1' file initially being there instead of the \boot\uImage-2.6.27.46-omap1 file overcome?


4. How did the 'vmlinux...omap1' come to disappear?


5. If 'vmlinux...omap1' is the kernel file extracted out originally into \boot, how well does the OS rootfs run using what could be a different kernel than intended? If this is what has happened!?


I am hoping that the answers to these questions will also help others wanting to fully understand the boot process.


Any responses much appreciated.
 
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