booting Ubuntu from SD Card on Mini210

I have a FriendlyARM Mini210 SBC. I am trying to run Ubuntu from the SD
card.

From what I can tell, the way to do this is to partition the SD card. The
first partition is FAT32 and contains the file superboot210 from the ftp
site in the images rar in the ubuntu-210 directory. The second partition is
ext3 and contains the images folder (FriendlyArm.ini and zImage).

I have tried to do this two ways. First, I tried to use the provided tool
SDFlasher. I consistently get an error saying that "The drive cannot find
the sector requested"

I have also tried following instructions from this website:
http://unix.stackexchange.com/questions/39556/how-can-the-job-of-sdflash....
I am able to partition the card and copy superboot and the image to the
card. However, when I try to boot the Mini210, I get a single beep followed
by a high pitch whine with LED6 lit (not flashing). Nothing shows up on the
screen.

Does anyone have any instructions on getting this to work? I would really
appreciate any help anyone can give. Thanks.

The ext3 needs an images directory containing the .ini script, and an
unbuntu directory with a copy of superboot and your zImage, unless you have
changed the paths in the script. There is also usually a copy of superboot
in the images directory - not sure at the moment which one gets used.

I would have thought the ubuntu setup would load u-boot and have a uImage.
I have not tried it on the 210. I'll check the master DVD iso in the
morning.

Thank you for your help. To clarify, the file structure should be:

In the FAT32 partition: Superboot210.bin
In the EXT3 partition:

images directory
     FriendlyArm.ini
     ubuntu directory
          Superboot210.bin
          zImage

Is that correct?

I have been using dd with seek=1 under linux. might i ask how your .ini is
configured?

This is the .ini file I am using. The only change I made was to make the
Action Run instead of Install. I did what TheRegnirps suggested and
followed the instructions on http://www.friendlyarm.net/forum/topic/3787
using dd with seek=1 

#This line cannot be removed. by FriendlyARM(www.arm9.net)

CheckOneButton=No
Action = Install
OS = Linux

LCD-Mode = No
LCD-Type = W50

LowFormat = No
VerifyNandWrite = No
CheckCRC32=No

StatusType = Beeper | LED


################### Linux ####################
Linux-BootLoader = Superboot210.bin
Linux-Kernel = Linux/zImage
Linux-CommandLine = root=/dev/mmcblk0p2 rootfstype=ext4
console=ttySAC0,115200 init=/sbin/init

Did you succeeded because I'm interested in to install an Ubuntu minimal on
the mini210/tiny210

I still have not been able to successfully boot Ubuntu on the Mini210.

Same problem here, it appears that the kernel trying to mount root from
mmcblk0p2 before sd card are fully recognized by it. And both rootwait and
rootdelay kernel options have no effects. I tried to modify the init script
in the initramfs without success either. BTW, mine is a mini210s.

Nice call. FriendlyARM was notified just yesterday about the problem after
discovery by BusError.

Looking at the code, if I got the right, it's in the sdhci-s3c.c file, it
looks like there are some quirks in there that may or may not conflict,
there is a timeout quirk, although that doesn't really explain why it seems
to ignore it.  I wonder if booting to a usb drive of some kind would allow
you to see what's going on with the sd driver?

Hi:

I also have a mini210 and was having the same problem, but then I realized
that SD card was being recognized as mmcblk0p1, so I changed this line on
the .ini file:

Linux-CommandLine = root=/dev/mmcblk0p1 rootfstype=ext4
console=ttySAC0,115200 init=/sbin/init

as you can see I changed mmcblk0p2 for mmcblk0p1.

after this, ubuntu is booting (very slow) but sill there are some issues, I
get this line:

mountall: Event failed

and then I get a lot of these lines:

init: Failed to create pty - disabling logging for job

any idea?