Status
------
U-Boot supports running as a coreboot [1] payload on x86. So far only Link
-(Chromebook Pixel) has been tested, but it should work with minimal adjustments
-on other x86 boards since coreboot deals with most of the low-level details.
+(Chromebook Pixel) and QEMU [2] x86 targets have been tested, but it should
+work with minimal adjustments on other x86 boards since coreboot deals with
+most of the low-level details.
U-Boot also supports booting directly from x86 reset vector without coreboot,
-aka raw support or bare support. Currently Link and Intel Crown Bay board
-support running U-Boot 'bare metal'.
+aka raw support or bare support. Currently Link, QEMU x86 targets and all
+Intel boards support running U-Boot 'bare metal'.
-As for loading OS, U-Boot supports directly booting a 32-bit or 64-bit Linux
-kernel as part of a FIT image. It also supports a compressed zImage.
+As for loading an OS, U-Boot supports directly booting a 32-bit or 64-bit
+Linux kernel as part of a FIT image. It also supports a compressed zImage.
Build Instructions
------------------
$ make coreboot-x86_defconfig
$ make all
-Building ROM version of U-Boot (hereafter referred to as u-boot.rom) is a
+Note this default configuration will build a U-Boot payload for the QEMU board.
+To build a coreboot payload against another board, you can change the build
+configuration during the 'make menuconfig' process.
+
+x86 architecture --->
+ ...
+ (qemu-x86) Board configuration file
+ (qemu-x86_i440fx) Board Device Tree Source (dts) file
+ (0x01920000) Board specific Cache-As-RAM (CAR) address
+ (0x4000) Board specific Cache-As-RAM (CAR) size
+
+Change the 'Board configuration file' and 'Board Device Tree Source (dts) file'
+to point to a new board. You can also change the Cache-As-RAM (CAR) related
+settings here if the default values do not fit your new board.
+
+Building a ROM version of U-Boot (hereafter referred to as u-boot.rom) is a
little bit tricky, as generally it requires several binary blobs which are not
shipped in the U-Boot source tree. Due to this reason, the u-boot.rom build is
not turned on by default in the U-Boot source tree. Firstly, you need turn it
-on by uncommenting the following line in the main U-Boot Makefile:
+on by enabling the ROM build:
-# ALL-$(CONFIG_X86_RESET_VECTOR) += u-boot.rom
+$ export BUILD_ROM=y
+
+This tells the Makefile to build u-boot.rom as a target.
Link-specific instructions:
* ./mainboard/google/link/descriptor.bin
* ./mainboard/google/link/me.bin
-* ./northbridge/intel/sandybridge/systemagent-ivybridge.bin
+* ./northbridge/intel/sandybridge/systemagent-r6.bin
The 3rd one should be renamed to mrc.bin.
-As for the video ROM, you can get it here [2].
+As for the video ROM, you can get it here [3].
Make sure all these binary blobs are put in the board directory.
Now you can build U-Boot and obtain u-boot.rom:
Intel Crown Bay specific instructions:
-U-Boot support of Intel Crown Bay board [3] relies on a binary blob called
-Firmware Support Package [4] to perform all the necessary initialization steps
+U-Boot support of Intel Crown Bay board [4] relies on a binary blob called
+Firmware Support Package [5] to perform all the necessary initialization steps
as documented in the BIOS Writer Guide, including initialization of the CPU,
memory controller, chipset and certain bus interfaces.
Rename the first one to fsp.bin and second one to cmc.bin and put them in the
board directory.
-Now you can build U-Boot and obtaim u-boot.rom
+Note the FSP release version 001 has a bug which could cause random endless
+loop during the FspInit call. This bug was published by Intel although Intel
+did not describe any details. We need manually apply the patch to the FSP
+binary using any hex editor (eg: bvi). Go to the offset 0x1fcd8 of the FSP
+binary, change the following five bytes values from orginally E8 42 FF FF FF
+to B8 00 80 0B 00.
+
+Now you can build U-Boot and obtain u-boot.rom
$ make crownbay_defconfig
$ make all
+Intel Minnowboard Max instructions:
+
+This uses as FSP as with Crown Bay, except it is for the Atom E3800 series.
+Download this and get the .fd file (BAYTRAIL_FSP_GOLD_003_16-SEP-2014.fd at
+the time of writing). Put it in the board directory:
+board/intel/minnowmax/fsp.bin
+
+Obtain the VGA RAM (Vga.dat at the time of writing) and put it into the same
+directory: board/intel/minnowmax/vga.bin
+
+You still need two more binary blobs. The first comes from the original
+firmware image available from:
+
+http://firmware.intel.com/sites/default/files/2014-WW42.4-MinnowBoardMax.73-64-bit.bin_Release.zip
+
+Unzip it:
+
+ $ unzip 2014-WW42.4-MinnowBoardMax.73-64-bit.bin_Release.zip
+
+Use ifdtool in the U-Boot tools directory to extract the images from that
+file, for example:
+
+ $ ./tools/ifdtool -x MNW2MAX1.X64.0073.R02.1409160934.bin
+
+This will provide the descriptor file - copy this into the correct place:
+
+ $ cp flashregion_0_flashdescriptor.bin board/intel/minnowmax/descriptor.bin
+
+Then do the same with the sample SPI image provided in the FSP (SPI.bin at
+the time of writing) to obtain the last image. Note that this will also
+produce a flash descriptor file, but it does not seem to work, probably
+because it is not designed for the Minnowmax. That is why you need to get
+the flash descriptor from the original firmware as above.
+
+ $ ./tools/ifdtool -x BayleyBay/SPI.bin
+ $ cp flashregion_2_intel_me.bin board/intel/minnowmax/me.bin
+
+Now you can build U-Boot and obtain u-boot.rom
+
+$ make minnowmax_defconfig
+$ make all
+
+Intel Galileo instructions:
+
+Only one binary blob is needed for Remote Management Unit (RMU) within Intel
+Quark SoC. Not like FSP, U-Boot does not call into the binary. The binary is
+needed by the Quark SoC itself.
+
+You can get the binary blob from Quark Board Support Package from Intel website:
+
+* ./QuarkSocPkg/QuarkNorthCluster/Binary/QuarkMicrocode/RMU.bin
+
+Rename the file and put it to the board directory by:
+
+ $ cp RMU.bin board/intel/galileo/rmu.bin
+
+Now you can build U-Boot and obtain u-boot.rom
+
+$ make galileo_defconfig
+$ make all
+
+QEMU x86 target instructions:
+
+To build u-boot.rom for QEMU x86 targets, just simply run
+
+$ make qemu-x86_defconfig
+$ make all
+
+Note this default configuration will build a U-Boot for the QEMU x86 i440FX
+board. To build a U-Boot against QEMU x86 Q35 board, you can change the build
+configuration during the 'make menuconfig' process like below:
+
+Device Tree Control --->
+ ...
+ (qemu-x86_q35) Default Device Tree for DT control
+
+Test with coreboot
+------------------
+For testing U-Boot as the coreboot payload, there are things that need be paid
+attention to. coreboot supports loading an ELF executable and a 32-bit plain
+binary, as well as other supported payloads. With the default configuration,
+U-Boot is set up to use a separate Device Tree Blob (dtb). As of today, the
+generated u-boot-dtb.bin needs to be packaged by the cbfstool utility (a tool
+provided by coreboot) manually as coreboot's 'make menuconfig' does not provide
+this capability yet. The command is as follows:
+
+# in the coreboot root directory
+$ ./build/util/cbfstool/cbfstool build/coreboot.rom add-flat-binary \
+ -f u-boot-dtb.bin -n fallback/payload -c lzma -l 0x1110000 -e 0x1110015
+
+Make sure 0x1110000 matches CONFIG_SYS_TEXT_BASE and 0x1110015 matches the
+symbol address of _start (in arch/x86/cpu/start.S).
+
+If you want to use ELF as the coreboot payload, change U-Boot configuration to
+use CONFIG_OF_EMBED instead of CONFIG_OF_SEPARATE.
+
+To enable video you must enable these options in coreboot:
+
+ - Set framebuffer graphics resolution (1280x1024 32k-color (1:5:5))
+ - Keep VESA framebuffer
+
+At present it seems that for Minnowboard Max, coreboot does not pass through
+the video information correctly (it always says the resolution is 0x0). This
+works correctly for link though.
+
+Test with QEMU
+--------------
+QEMU is a fancy emulator that can enable us to test U-Boot without access to
+a real x86 board. Please make sure your QEMU version is 2.3.0 or above test
+U-Boot. To launch QEMU with u-boot.rom, call QEMU as follows:
+
+$ qemu-system-i386 -nographic -bios path/to/u-boot.rom
+
+This will instantiate an emulated x86 board with i440FX and PIIX chipset. QEMU
+also supports emulating an x86 board with Q35 and ICH9 based chipset, which is
+also supported by U-Boot. To instantiate such a machine, call QEMU with:
+
+$ qemu-system-i386 -nographic -bios path/to/u-boot.rom -M q35
+
+Note by default QEMU instantiated boards only have 128 MiB system memory. But
+it is enough to have U-Boot boot and function correctly. You can increase the
+system memory by pass '-m' parameter to QEMU if you want more memory:
+
+$ qemu-system-i386 -nographic -bios path/to/u-boot.rom -m 1024
+
+This creates a board with 1 GiB system memory. Currently U-Boot for QEMU only
+supports 3 GiB maximum system memory and reserves the last 1 GiB address space
+for PCI device memory-mapped I/O and other stuff, so the maximum value of '-m'
+would be 3072.
+
+QEMU emulates a graphic card which U-Boot supports. Removing '-nographic' will
+show QEMU's VGA console window. Note this will disable QEMU's serial output.
+If you want to check both consoles, use '-serial stdio'.
+
CPU Microcode
-------------
-Modern CPU usually requires a special bit stream called microcode [5] to be
+Modern CPUs usually require a special bit stream called microcode [6] to be
loaded on the processor after power up in order to function properly. U-Boot
has already integrated these as hex dumps in the source tree.
Device Tree
-----------
x86 uses device tree to configure the board thus requires CONFIG_OF_CONTROL to
-be turned on. Not every device on the board is configured via devie tree, but
+be turned on. Not every device on the board is configured via device tree, but
more and more devices will be added as time goes by. Check out the directory
arch/x86/dts/ for these device tree source files.
+Useful Commands
+---------------
+In keeping with the U-Boot philosophy of providing functions to check and
+adjust internal settings, there are several x86-specific commands that may be
+useful:
+
+hob - Display information about Firmware Support Package (FSP) Hand-off
+ Block. This is only available on platforms which use FSP, mostly
+ Atom.
+iod - Display I/O memory
+iow - Write I/O memory
+mtrr - List and set the Memory Type Range Registers (MTRR). These are used to
+ tell the CPU whether memory is cacheable and if so the cache write
+ mode to use. U-Boot sets up some reasonable values but you can
+ adjust then with this command.
+
+Development Flow
+----------------
+These notes are for those who want to port U-Boot to a new x86 platform.
+
+Since x86 CPUs boot from SPI flash, a SPI flash emulator is a good investment.
+The Dediprog em100 can be used on Linux. The em100 tool is available here:
+
+ http://review.coreboot.org/p/em100.git
+
+On Minnowboard Max the following command line can be used:
+
+ sudo em100 -s -p LOW -d u-boot.rom -c W25Q64DW -r
+
+A suitable clip for connecting over the SPI flash chip is here:
+
+ http://www.dediprog.com/pd/programmer-accessories/EM-TC-8
+
+This allows you to override the SPI flash contents for development purposes.
+Typically you can write to the em100 in around 1200ms, considerably faster
+than programming the real flash device each time. The only important
+limitation of the em100 is that it only supports SPI bus speeds up to 20MHz.
+This means that images must be set to boot with that speed. This is an
+Intel-specific feature - e.g. tools/ifttool has an option to set the SPI
+speed in the SPI descriptor region.
+
+If your chip/board uses an Intel Firmware Support Package (FSP) it is fairly
+easy to fit it in. You can follow the Minnowboard Max implementation, for
+example. Hopefully you will just need to create new files similar to those
+in arch/x86/cpu/baytrail which provide Bay Trail support.
+
+If you are not using an FSP you have more freedom and more responsibility.
+The ivybridge support works this way, although it still uses a ROM for
+graphics and still has binary blobs containing Intel code. You should aim to
+support all important peripherals on your platform including video and storage.
+Use the device tree for configuration where possible.
+
+For the microcode you can create a suitable device tree file using the
+microcode tool:
+
+ ./tools/microcode-tool -d microcode.dat create <model>
+
+or if you only have header files and not the full Intel microcode.dat database:
+
+ ./tools/microcode-tool -H BAY_TRAIL_FSP_KIT/Microcode/M0130673322.h \
+ -H BAY_TRAIL_FSP_KIT/Microcode/M0130679901.h \
+ create all
+
+These are written to arch/x86/dts/microcode/ by default.
+
+Note that it is possible to just add the micrcode for your CPU if you know its
+model. U-Boot prints this information when it starts
+
+ CPU: x86_64, vendor Intel, device 30673h
+
+so here we can use the M0130673322 file.
+
+If you platform can display POST codes on two little 7-segment displays on
+the board, then you can use post_code() calls from C or assembler to monitor
+boot progress. This can be good for debugging.
+
+If not, you can try to get serial working as early as possible. The early
+debug serial port may be useful here. See setup_early_uart() for an example.
+
TODO List
---------
-- MTRR support (for performance)
- Audio
- Chrome OS verified boot
- SMI and ACPI support, to provide platform info and facilities to Linux
References
----------
[1] http://www.coreboot.org
-[2] http://www.coreboot.org/~stepan/pci8086,0166.rom
-[3] http://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/embedded/design-tools/evaluation-platforms/atom-e660-eg20t-development-kit.html
-[4] http://www.intel.com/fsp
-[5] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microcode
+[2] http://www.qemu.org
+[3] http://www.coreboot.org/~stepan/pci8086,0166.rom
+[4] http://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/embedded/design-tools/evaluation-platforms/atom-e660-eg20t-development-kit.html
+[5] http://www.intel.com/fsp
+[6] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microcode
projects / karo-tx-uboot.git / blobdiff