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SysLink Configuration

Added by Okan Çalış over 6 years ago

Hi,

I'm working on a MityDsp-L138F SoM, with the ARM running Linux. So far, I've managed to make the ARM and DSP cores communicate through Critical Link's wrapper functions for DspLink. But my problem is that DspLink does not support ELF executables for the slave loader. All the sample codes in StarterWare use ELF libraries, meaning they won't work with COFF binaries or Linux executables.

That's why I have to migrate to SysLink, which supports ELF. I followed the instructions in TI's SysLink Install Guide and the SysLink Configuration page in your wiki. I built SysLink successfully and reached the step where you modify the Linux bootargs according to the memory map in config.bld.

This tells us that the example is designating 64 KB for SR_0 (a memory block needed by IPC), 8 MB for the DSP code and data, and 32 + 64 MB for Linux.
When booting the image from U-Boot, we need ensure that 32 MB at address C0000000 and 64 MB at address C4000000 are available to linux. To do this, boot the MityDSP-L138 into U-Boot and modify the bootargs.

U-Boot > editenv bootargs
edit: XXXX mem=32M@0xc0000000 mem=64M@0xc4000000 XXXX
U-Boot > saveenv

My bootargs was "mem=96M console=ttyS1,115200n8 root=/dev/mtdblock0 rw noatime rootfstype=jffs2 ip=none", and I changed it as "mem=32M@0xc0000000 mem=64M@0xc4000000 console=ttyS1,115200n8 root=/dev/mtdblock0 rw noatime rootfstype=jffs2 ip=none" and saved the environment. Then, when I tried booting Linux (sf probe 0; sf read 0xc0700000 0x100000 0x300000; bootm 0xc0700000), it got stuck at "... done, booting the kernel.".

This TI wiki page says that the boot parameter must be incorrect, but I don't know how to fix it. What's the difference between the memory value after bootm and the one in bootargs? I tried changing "bootm c0700000" to c0000000, but it still gets stuck.

My components are:
  • CCS 7.2.0
  • SYS/BIOS 6.34.03.19
  • IPC 1.25.01.09
  • XDC Tools 3.24.05.48
  • SysLink 2.21.03.11

Thanks in advance,
Okan


Replies (8)

RE: SysLink Configuration - Added by Jonathan Cormier over 6 years ago

Okan Çalış wrote:

This TI wiki page says that the boot parameter must be incorrect, but I don't know how to fix it. What's the difference between the memory value after bootm and the one in bootargs? I tried changing "bootm c0700000" to c0000000, but it still gets stuck.

The bootm address is the memory location where you copied the kernel. Which must match the sf read 0xc0700000 ... address. The bootm command will then copy the kernel image to the Load Address before switching over to kernel execution.

U-Boot > bootm c0700000

    Booting kernel from Legacy Image at c0700000 ...
    Image Name: Linux-3.2.0
    Image Type: ARM Linux Kernel Image (uncompressed)
    Data Size: 2530168 Bytes = 2.4 MB
    Load Address: c0008000
    Entry Point: c0008000
    Verifying Checksum ... OK
    Loading Kernel Image ... OK
    OK

Search for "Loading" in u-boot common/cmd_bootm.c . To see what its doing.

I'd look into setting up earlyprintk.
Also double check that using the old bootargs still work.
Make sure your console= doesn't have any typos.
Try some of these: https://elinux.org/Debugging_by_printing#Debugging_early_boot_problems

RE: SysLink Configuration - Added by Okan Çalış over 6 years ago

Hi,

I was just about to build a new kernel to set earlyprintk, then I realized my bootargs were missing 0x prefixes. I fixed it and the kernel now boots. (Oddly, I never used 0x in my other U-Boot commands and I never ran into an issue.) And the ex01_helloworld example works as shown in SysLink Configuration.

Thanks again.

RE: SysLink Configuration - Added by Jonathan Cormier over 6 years ago

Thanks for the update. Glad you found the problem.

RE: SysLink Configuration - Added by Okan Çalış over 6 years ago

Hi,

Since I managed to run the example executables in MityDsp last week, I've been trying to modify the codes and understand how it works, but I couldn't even compile any of them yet.

The TI wiki has a Creating CCS Project for SysLink samples page, which I can't follow because the page is supposedly out-of-date (to be more specific, "samples" are said to be obsolete and replaced by "examples"). I looked for a similar page for importing "examples", but I couldn't find one. I asked this as a question at the E2E Forum nearly a week ago, but they are not responding.

To import the DSP side of the ex02_messageq example, I create a SYS/BIOS project with the following RTSC setting:
  • Target: ti.targets.elf.C674
  • Platform: ti.platforms.evmOMAPL138
    (Both these fields come up empty and I'm not sure about these values.)

I also add the path "home/okancalis/ti/syslink_2_21_03_11/packages" as a repository and finish creating the project. At this state, I can build the project without trouble.

Then, I delete the default files main.c, app.cfg, and makefile.defs and copy the files main_dsp.c, Server.c, Server.h, makefile and Dsp.cfg from "examples/ex02_messageq/dsp" to the project directory. I also copy the directory "examples/ex02_messageq/shared" to the parent folder of the project. Then, when I try building the project, I get: "Cannot read property "base" from undefined (Dsp.cfg#88)"

I searched the web, but couldn't find a fix. What do you think could be wrong?

Another question: The example doesn't show how to read the inbound message; am I supposed to read the SharedRegionSRPtr field of the App_Msg struct? SysLink API is no way as simple as Critical Link's wrappers.

Thanks again,
Okan

RE: SysLink Configuration - Added by Jonathan Cormier over 6 years ago

Hi Okan,

We currently do not support SysLink in the capacity needed to answer your most recent questions. We recommend pursuing your project using our MDK (which utilizes DSPLink instead of SysLink), as we are more able to provide support related to such efforts.

If SysLink is a necessity for your project and you would like to enlist our services to help with the issues you are having, please contact to discuss this possibility.

Thanks,
Jonathan

RE: SysLink Configuration - Added by Okan Çalış over 6 years ago

Hi, Jonathan,

I understand that you do not support SysLink, and using your MDK for ARM-DSP communication is very easy for me, too, given the complexity of SysLink examples and the E2E forum's reluctance to respond to my questions.

But I'm confused about why you are supporting both Starterware (which is, oddly enough, listed under Linux Operation System in the wiki but incompatible with Linux) and DspLink (which does not let the Starterware examples run on DSP). So, are the Starterware examples not supposed to be used with multicore at all? Or is there a work around?

Thanks again,
Okan

RE: SysLink Configuration - Added by Michael Williamson over 6 years ago

We added minimal support for Starterware for a couple of specific customers that insisted on using it. In those cases, they were not really running multicore. They wanted to either run bare-metal ARM or bare-metal DSP code (not both). Startware applications are loaded from u-Boot via COFF or ELF format or directly from SPI via a custom AIS bootloading sequence. No linux or higher level OS is used.

If you want both CPU's running application software, the only real path that we support is ARM+Linux and DSP+DSPBIOS using DSPLINK, though some customers have successfully migrated our platform to SYSLINK without much help from Critical Link.

-Mike

RE: SysLink Configuration - Added by Okan Çalış over 6 years ago

Thanks, Mike,
That clarified things.

Regarding my earlier question, this forum thread has the answer, in case someone else needs it.

The SysLink examples are provided to be built on the command line, so it may be easier to just rebuild on the command line as opposed to using CCS

Okan

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