[maemo-developers] [maemo-developers] Flasher Documentation -- In Progress.

[From: Juha Yrjölä]

On Tue, Jan 31, 2006 at 03:30:49PM +0200, ext Ed Bartosh wrote:

> > * -load, -l I cannot figure out the value of just loading a file without
> > flashing it.  Do I follow on with another command to flash?  How so?
> > All other options look to flash and load in one pop from the host PC.
> > How do I load a file and then flash later if that is the intent?
> I think that -l command is for loading  kernel image into device's memory.
> You can load kernel image and then run it.
> Frankly speaking I haven't tried this thing. This is probably for
> debugging needs.

Yup.  It's meant for loading and booting experimental kernels to try them
out without overwriting the one on flash.

> > * --serial-port, -S <arg>;  --initialize-port, -I <arg> Ok what do we do
> > here?  Is this the right cable http://ucables.com/ref/DEJANRS232 for the
> > pins in the battery compartment
> > http://www.karoliinasalminen.com/blog/?page_id=68 ?  If so then how do
> > you use power via battery and the serial cable at the same time?
> I only know that -S specifies serial port number for cold flashing.

Serial port device, to be exact, but AFAIK there is no publicly available
cable for accessing the serial port.

> > * --boot, -b [arg] Now this looks fun.  Is there a list of known values
> > for the kernel?  Can you set single user mode or switch to runlevel
> > three with these boot options?
> Theoretically yes, but in practice It doesn't work, at least for me:

The optional argument was supposed to override the command line compiled into 
he kernel, but I had some trouble with OMAP EP0 data receive code, so I didn't
bother with implementing the feature.  Maybe sometime in the future. =)

> It seems that bootloader runs kernel with some hardcoded commandline,
> but I may be wrong.

The bootloader doesn't supply any command line to the kernel.

Cheers,
Juha