Hi, We want to create a flash image that we can use to setup all our mini2440s. They seem to come with different bootloaders and images, and we want to standardise them before we do anything with them. However, we're stuck when the mini we are restoring the image onto has bad blocks. The restore (obviously, in retrospect) fails when it tries to write to the bad block. Is there a way around this?
Solution: do not use plain images from a NAND. It does not work like a harddisk. NAND memory needs bad block and checksum handling. And sometimes the internal layout in the NAND is different from type to type. For the root filesystem you can create an image with all the content you need. This has to be created in accordance to the NAND flash layout and is also bad block aware (when storing this kind of image to the NAND you can skip bad blocks and the result will still work)
Hmm, I was afraid that would be the answer. Assuming we have an 'image' - boot loader, kernel, filesystem etc we want to install on any mini2440 we get, what's the simplest (fewest steps) way to do this? Ideally the process would be the same no matter what the state of the mini2440 actually is.
Instead of using "golden images" use a buildsystem like buildroot or PTXdist instead. This will ensure you will get always the correct images for your flash (even if the badblocks are different from system to system, and even if the NAND type itself is different).
We're using PTXdist to build the kernel and filesystem, it was a simple 'click and run' mechanism we were after to get them onto the boards - no matter what bootloader or setup the board already had. We've settled on using teraterm's macro language, and writing a script for it that will download the barebox bootloader into ram, run it, flash it to nand, and then download and flash the kernel and filesystem. User interaction is limited to starting the script, and then running DNW to upload the barebox image to the board. It works for us! (And more importantly, the people we'll have installing the boards in the wild)