Kernel upgrade fails with GTA01 rootfs on SDHC

[cwixon@…]

I don't know exactly where to categorize this, because it's not really a kernel
issue, but more related to packaging and flashing . . . feel free to reclassify
this bug.

In any event, I'm running an AUTOREV rootfs (built myself) on my SDHC card via
the procedure described here:
​http://wiki.openmoko.org/wiki/Booting_from_SD#Boot_from_SDHC

Accordingly, my kernel is in NAND where it usually goes.

When the kernel gets upgraded via ipkg/opkg, the new kernel-image .ipk file has
a postinst script that is supposed to erase the kernel partition and reflash it
with the new kernel. But that's not working. Looks like this:

root@thrakkorzog:/$opkg upgrade
Configuring kernel-image-2.6.24
Upgrading kernel in Flash
DO NOT stop this process
/usr/bin/flash_eraseall: /dev/: Is a directory
postinst script returned status 1
Nothing to be done
Collected errors:
ERROR: kernel-image-2.6.24.postinst returned 1
root@thrakkorzog:/$

So I looked into this a little further, and it appears that the postinst script
does some hackery based on grepping "kernel" in the contents of /proc/mtd to
determine where to flash. That should indicate where the kernel lives. But on
my device:

root@thrakkorzog:/$cat /proc/mtd
dev: size erasesize name
mtd0: 04000000 00004000 "neo1973-nand"

And that's all. So the kernel doesn't show up at all, and the flash operation
fails.

But I know it's there, and the default NAND partitioning scheme is in place (I
even have a basic rootfs in NAND, but I don't boot from it).

My workaround is to have a custom .bb for the kernel based on the official one
but with a few defconfig tweaks (turn OFF mmc debug messages) and removal of the
postinst flash operations to allow it to succeed. I haven't tested this yet
because there's something wrong with the openmoko git repository, but that's
another problem . . .

[andy@…]

I guess this was an issue about passing in dynparts from the U-Boot environment.

When I boot from SD card on GTA02 (which I do a lot) I get

# cat /proc/mtd
dev: size erasesize name
mtd0: 00200000 00010000 "physmap-flash.0"
mtd1: 00040000 00020000 "u-boot"
mtd2: 00040000 00020000 "u-boot_env"
mtd3: 00800000 00020000 "kernel"
mtd4: 000a0000 00020000 "splash"
mtd5: 00040000 00020000 "factory"
mtd6: 0f6a0000 00020000 "rootfs"

which is correct. If I cat /proc/cmdline (ie, this is what the U-Boot
environment gave Linux):

mtdparts=physmap-flash:-(nor);neo1973-nand:0x00040000(u-boot),0x00040000(u-boot_env),0x00800000(kernel),0x000a0000(splash),0x00040000(factory),0x0f6a0000(rootfs)
rootfstype=ext2 root=/dev/mmcblk0p2 loglevel=4 init=/sbin/init ro

[andy]

Moving to "Distro" Component. Please close it if seems to be fixed.

[julian_chu]

There are some code in postinstall

                if [ "x$MTD_KERNEL_PARTITION" = "x" ] ; then
                        exit 1
                fi

Therefore it should exit if it doesnt' find kernel partition.

However, I will do a test after I got a GTA01

Thanks, Andy , Cwixon

[graeme]

I think this is fixed, closing.