TryOutuClinux

Version 26, changed by hippo5329@yahoo.com.tw. 03/29/2007.   Show version history

You may try out the uClinux on you Altera Nios II dev board before compiling anything. You can lean how to run a compiled program on your board. (It is a very basic and important step.)

The images for std_2c35 and de2_net are built from uClinux-dist-20060803 and 20070130. It uses the default Nios II config. It has Ethernet driver, telnetd, ftpd, and httpd servers. Please check UClinuxDist for booting up and usage.
Others were buit with the minimal config ~/download/kernel.config using the buildroot tools. for 2s60es and 1s10es, use 2s60 and 1s10es 's zImage.

If you have installed QuartusforLinux (recommended), you can run these examples on Linux.

For Altera Nios dev board 2C35 edition (not apply to DSP board 2C35),

1. use web brower to download zImage_std_2c35 file to a dir, eg, c:/download
In your quartus install dir, copy sof file from altera7.0/nios2eds/examples/verilog/niosII_cycloneII_2c35/standard/standard.sof to c:/temp
2. open a nios2 command shell from Windows Start-->Programs-->Altera-->Nios II 7.0 -->Nios II Command Shell
Note the drives mapping in nios2 shell, drive c: is /cygdrive/c/
3. in nios2 command shell, cd to that dir,
cd /cygdrive/c/download
nios2-configure-sof standard.sof
nios2-download -g zImage_std_2c35
it will show "Starting processor at address 0x04500000"
4. nios2-terminal

For DE2  2C35 dev board,

1. use web brower to download zImage_de2_net and DE2_NET.sof . put these files in c:/download. (which is regenerated from the DE2 System CD v. 1.5—ZIP , using Quartus II v7.0. The original sof has problems, and cause download verify error. And the updated ptf is system_0.ptf )
2. open a nios2 command shell from Windows Start-->Programs-->Altera-->Nios II 7.0 -->Nios II Command Shell
Note the drives mapping in nios2 shell, drive c: is /cygdrive/c/
3. in nios2 command shell, cd to that dir,
cd /cygdrive/c/download
nios2-configure-sof DE2_NET.sof
nios2-download -g zImage_de2_net
it will show "Starting processor at address 0x00d00000"
4. nios2-terminal

You may follow the messages displayed in UClinuxDist , and try out the example shell commands.

The sof and zImage didn't write to the cfi flash or epcs with nios2-configure-sof and nios2-download. They will lost after power off. Follow FlashProgrammer when you want them loaded after power on.

BinaryToolchain

Version 13, changed by hippo5329@yahoo.com.tw. 01/03/2007.   Show version history

Attached are binary of the tools to run on Linux PC and root fs from buildroot. You can use it to compile kernel and apps.You don't have to download and build buildroot. (but you should try it later, when you got more experiences)

Login as a user account on Linux PC, eg, hippo. The user home dir will be /home/hippo, short form. as ~/ .

use web browser to download the cross gcc, nios2gcc.tar.bz2

put it in ~/download (ie /home/hippo/download )dir.

open a terminal. Run,

The cross gcc tools will be in /opt/nios dir.
Then setup the PATH for the cross gcc, you can update the path of the cross gcc in file ~/.bash_profile ( the file is hidden, you have to use "ls -a" to find it . For "gedit" use open Location, and enter the file name)
PATH=$PATH:/opt/nios2/bin:$HOME/bin
so that it will be in the PATH when you login Linux next time.

Or , to test it in current terminal session,
PATH=$PATH:/opt/nios2/bin
But the path will be lost when the session closed.

It should display the info,

Reading specs from /opt/nios2/lib/gcc/nios2-linux-uclibc/3.4.6/specs
Configured with: /root/buildroot/toolchain_build_nios2/gcc-3.4.6/configure --prefix=/opt/nios2 --build=i386-pc-linux-gnu --host=i386-pc-linux-gnu --target=nios2-linux-uclibc --enable-languages=c --enable-shared --disable-__cxa_atexit --enable-target-optspace --with-gnu-ld --disable-nls --enable-threads --disable-multilib --enable-cxx-flags=-static
Thread model: posix
gcc version 3.4.6

Then try build kernel and apps as in the UClinuxDist .

OPTIONAL, the nios2libs.tar.bz2 are headers and lib for zlib,openssl,ncurses. (ssh need openssl and zlib) . You need to copy the runtime data from /opt/nios2/usr to your rootfs if you want to use them.

If you want to follow BuildrootGuide (NOT recommended for newbie) to build kernel and apps,

cd ~
tar jxf nios2rootfs.tar.bz2

The rootfs with busybox will be in ~/rootfs and ~/download/rootfs_list .

UClinuxDist

Version 121, changed by hippo5329@yahoo.com.tw. 04/01/2007.   Show version history

uClinux-dist-20070130 release , the kernel is linux-2.6.19-uc1

(This is different from the older buildroot guide approach. DO NOT MIX UP)

First, you should (recommended for newbie) install the BinaryToolchain
You need ncurses,ncurses-devel and bison installed on your Linux PC.
(Or you can build the cross compiler from sources with BuildrootGuide , but it might be difficult for beginner)

check if you have "cc" which is a symlink to "gcc" ?
which gcc
gcc -v
which cc
cc -v
if not,
su -
cd /usr/bin
ln -s gcc cc

# login as a user account, don't use root account.
cd ~
rm -rf uClinux-dist      # you must remove or rename old dir, you must apply the patches ONLY ONCE.
tar jxf ~/download/uClinux-dist-20070130.tar.bz2
cd uClinux-dist
gunzip -c  ~/download/uClinux-dist-20070130-nios2-02.diff.gz | patch -p0

still in uClinux-dist dir, DO NOT cd linux-2.6.x

make menuconfig

check if you have the correct target?  Altera, nios2nommu, and Libc must be None.
Vendor/Product Selection --->
--- Select the Vendor you wish to target
(Altera) Vendor
--- Select the Product you wish to target
(nios2nommu) Altera Products 

Kernel/Library/Defaults Selection --->
(linux-2.6.x) Kernel Version
(None) Libc Version
[*] Default all settings (lose changes)
[ ] Customize Kernel Settings
[ ] Customize Vendor/User Settings
[ ] Update Default Vendor Settings
Then <exit> <exit> <yes>
DO NOT change any other setting until first successful boot.

Setup memory and io port address map of your Nios II board (see LinuxHwselect for details) .
(still in uClinux-dist dir, DO NOT cd linux-2.6.x)

make vendor_hwselect SYSPTF=~/your_hardware_project/your_system.ptf  # you must give the path to ptf
make romfs # to create romfs dir, make will fail, ignored. You must do this before the first make
# compile kernel and apps
make     # first make may fail, just ignore the error, and do another make. this is caused by parallel compilation. it does not matter.
make
make linux image # rebuild kernel for initramfs

If you meet errors, you can use "NON_SMP_BUILD=1 make", which avoids parallel make. The messages will be cleaner.

The compressed kernel is images/zImage of elf format. You can follow TryOutuClinux to run the new zImage .

Below is the the start up message of Altera University Program DE2  dev board with EtherNet enabled.
Using make vendor_hwselect SYSPTF=~/donwload/system_0.ptf . The zImge, ptf and sof are attached in TryOutuClinux .

You can check what is in busybox, by running "busybox" on uClinux.
You can check what is in sash, by "help" .

We use initramfs instead of the default romfs . The initramfs is generated from romfs dir and the dev file in vendors/Altera/nios2nommu/romfs_list .
If you make any change to the kernel or filesystem, you must run "make" and "make linux image" again to update the initramfs. See InitramfsUpdate .

The simplified "init" program will run etc/rc and etc/inittab during startup.
If you want to customize startup, eg inet servers and eth config, you should update the files vendors/Altera/nios2nommu/ rc and inittab.

We arrange to minimize the memory usage. We use sash as default shell, it is smaller than busybox and take less memory. We include some standalone networking servers, such as inetd and telnetd. We build some networking utility into busybox, such as ifconfig,route,netstat,telnet,wget..etc. We don't use sh in busybox, and don't use servers in busybox as it takes a lot of memory.

Still in uClinux-dist dir, DO NOT cd linux-2.6.x

make menuconfig

Kernel/Library/Defaults Selection --->
(linux-2.6.x) Kernel Version
(None) Libc Version
[ ] Default all settings (lose changes)
[*] Customize Kernel Settings
[*] Customize Vendor/User Settings
[ ] Update Default Vendor Settings

Then <exit> <exit> <yes> .
It will enter kernel config first,  then it will enter user apps config, you can select more apps.
After you change config,

make
make linux image # rebuild kernel for initramfs

Note, the uClinux-dist dependency list may not work well, in some case you may need to "make -C <some dir> clean" before "make".
If you change busybox setting, you need to "rm user/busybox/busybox" .

These nios2 patches has been submitted to uClinux-dist, and merged. So the last patch was smaller, and just some minor update after the release. Don't use older patches on newer dist release, or it will be over patched.

update the patches

Changelog of uClinux-dist-20060803-nios2-02.diff.gz,

Changelog of uClinux-dist-test-20070108-nios2-02.diff.gz,

Changelog of uClinux-dist-20060803-nios2-02.diff.gz,