Boot Linux from SD Card

How to create an SD card using pre-built SD card image and use it to boot Linux on the Altera Arria 10 SoC Development board

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Prerequisites

You will need the following items:

• Arria 10 SoCDevelopment Kit rev.C or rev.B, including:
  • DDR4 Memory Card
  • SD Boot Card
• Micro SD Card (4GB or greater)
• Host PC with:
  • Serial terminal (for example minicom on Linux and TeraTerm or PuTTY on Windows)
  • Micro SD card slot or Micro SD card writer (or SD-capable writer + SD to micro SD converter)
• Local Ethernet network, with DHCP server (will be used to provide IP address to the board).

Creating SD Card

This section explains how to create the SD card necessary to boot Linux, using the SD card image available with the precompiled Linux binaries package.

Creating SD Card on Linux

The required steps are:

1. Download the GSRD release binaries and extract and decompress the SD card image:

$ cd ~
For rev.C: $ wget https://releases.rocketboards.org/2016.05/gsrd/bin/linux-socfpga-gsrd-16.0-a10-bin.tar.gz
For rev.B: $ wget https://releases.rocketboards.org/2016.05/gsrd/bin/a10_devkit_revb/linux-socfpga-gsrd-16.0-a10-bin.tar.gz
$ tar xzf linux-socfpga-gsrd-16.0-a10-bin.tar.gz sdimage.tar.gz
$ tar xzf sdimage.tar.gz

This will create the file sdimage.img which contains the SD card image file.

2. Determine the device associated with the SD card on the host by running the following command before and after inserting the card in the reader:

$ cat /proc/partitions 

Let's assume it is /dev/sdx.

3. Use dd utility to write the SD image to the SD card:

$ sudo dd if=sdimage.img of=/dev/sdx bs=1M

Note we are using sudo to be able to write to the card.

4. Use sync utility to flush the changes to the SD card:

$ sudo sync

Creating SD Card on Windows

This section explains how to write the SD image to the SD card on a Windows PC.

1. Download the compressed SD card image archive:

• For rev.C: https://releases.rocketboards.org/2016.05/gsrd/bin/linux-socfpga-gsrd-16.0-a10-bin.tar.gz.
• For rev.B: https://releases.rocketboards.org/2016.05/gsrd/bin/a10_devkit_revb/linux-socfpga-gsrd-16.0-a10-bin.tar.gz.

2. This archive contains the SD card image file and may also contain other archive files. Extract the SD card image "sdimage.img" from this compressed archive using WinZip or similar.

3. UseWin32DiskImager to write the image to the SD card. The tool can be downloaded from here: http://sourceforge.net/projects/win32diskimager/files/latest/download

Configuring Board

This section presents the necessary board settings in order to run theGSRD on the Altera Arria 10SoC development board.

First, confirm the following:

• DDR4 memory card is installed on HPS Memory socket
• SD Boot Card is installed on Boot Flash socket

Then the board switches need to be configured as follows:

• SW1: OFF-OFF-ON-ON
• SW2: all OFF
• SW3: OF-ON-ON-ON-ON-OFF-OFF-OFF
• SW4: all OFF

Also, the board jumpers need to be configured as follows:

• Place jumpers J16, J17
• Leave all other jumpers unplaced

Configuring Serial Connection

The board has a built-in FTDI USB to Serial converter chip that allows the host computer to see the board as a virtual serial port.CentOS 6.6 and other modern Linux distributions have built-indrivers for the FTDI USB to Serial converter chip, so no driver installation is necessary on those platforms. On Windows, theSoC EDS installer automatically installs the required drivers if necessary.

The serial communication parameters are:

• Baud-rate: 115,200
• Parity: none
• Flow control: none
• Stop bits: 1

On Windows, utilities such asTeraTerm andPuTTY can be used to connect to the board. They are easily configured from the tool menus.

On Linux, the minicom utility can be used. Here is how to configure it:

1. The virtual serial port is usually named /dev/ttyUSB0. In order to determine the device name associated with the virtual serial port on your host PC, please perform the following:

• Use the following command to determine which USB serial devices are already installed: ls /dev/ttyUSB*
• Connect mini USB cable from J10 to the PC. This will enable the PC to communicate with the board, even if the board is not powered yet.
• Use the ls /dev/ttyUSB* command command again to determine which new USB serial device appeared.

3. Install minicom application on host PC, if not already installed.

• On CentOS, use sudo yum install minicom
• On Ubuntu, use sudo apt-get install minicom

3. Configure minicom

$ sudo minicom -s

Under Serial Port Setup choose the following

• Serial Device: /dev/ttyUSB0 (edit to match the system as necessary)
• Bps/Par/Bits: 115200 8N1
• Hardware Flow Control: No
• Software Flow Control: No
• Hit [ESC] to return to the main configuration menu

Select Save Setup as dfl to save the default setupSelect Exit.

Booting Linux

This section presents how to boot Linux on the board. The required steps are:

1. Create SD card as presented above.

2. Start serial terminal (when using minicom it will connect using the selected settings, for others connect manually)

3. Power up board

4. No console output for ~15 seconds

5. DDR is calibrated and this is the first message displayed on the serial console.

6. Linux boots

7. The IP address of the target board will be displayed on the 1st line of the LCD display. Note that the IP address is displayed only at the boot time, it is not updated if the IP address is changed later, for example by the user.

8. Login using ‘root’ as username and no password.