Platform/Board Initialisation

After an embedded system platform is manufactured, it needs to be configured and setup with the appropriate software and configurations before it is of any use.

In a conventional product development scenario, engineers would design procedures for bringing the board to life and also run automated testing routines to reduce the handling time during production.

PetaLinux provides a framework for embedded platform initialisation and testing, while ensuring maximium flexibility so that the user is able to incorporate vendor-specific routines into this framework.

Platform Initialisation Procedures

Start Kermit

Ensure that the 'kermit' program is set up and started. 

Boot up U-Boot on target platform

Boot up U-Boot, via FS-Boot as per the instructions outlined in the Booting U-Boot chapter.

Be sure to interrupt U-Boot's auto-boot sequence by pressing a key when requested.

Writing U-Boot into Flash Memory

The next step is to write the U-Boot binary image into the boot partition of the Flash memory.

Network download

The basic action is:

   U-Boot> run update_uboot

This will load the u-boot image over ethernet (tftp from workstation), erase the correct sections of the flash memory, and write the u-boot bootloader back into flash.

Initialisation Completed

Once the initialisation is successfully completed, the target platform can be restarted and it should boot up with all the configured parameters.