Generic OMAP port setup information (Rev #16)

Getting a ROM image and !Boot sequence

The first thing to do is obviously to get a ROM image. If you want to build one yourself, view the instructions on this page. If you want to use a prebuilt ROM image, you can download one from this page.

You may also want to download the HardDisk4 archive which contains the RISC OS 5 !Boot sequence and other utilities. Note that there are two versions available – a self-extracting version and a tar/bz2 version. Only choose the tar/bz2 version if you have a working RISC OS machine which you can use to extract the archive onto a USB device!

Putting the ROM image onto an SD card

Attempting to prepare an SD card manually can often result in failure, either due to user error or operating system quirks. The easiest way to solve this problem is to use the SDCreate utility, a copy of which is supplied with every OMAP3 ROM image distributed by ROOL. Even if you don’t have a RISC OS machine on which to run SDCreate, you’ll still want a copy of the app, as it contains a description of how SD cards are prepared, and copies of the required U-Boot scripts.

Before preparing your SD card, you may need to track down some extra files/software:

• BeagleBoard-xM users will need suitable copies of x-loader and U-Boot. You will find suitable versions on the Linux SD card that came with your board; the ‘mlo’ file is x-loader, and the ‘u-boot/bin’ file is u-boot. Alternatively, you can download the latest copies of those files from following advice/links via the beagleboard.org website.
  • On the Beagle Board Diagnostic Tools and Procedure page, under ‘Preparing the flash on your BeagleBoard’ there is a link stating where to acquire the individual MLO and u-boot.bin files.
  • This page is an XML page and therefore poses difficulties for current RISC OS browsers.
  • However, the specific links can be used for the downloads and are (as at 4 November 2011):
    • MLO
    • u-boot.bin
• TouchBook users will need suitable copies of x-loader and U-Boot as well. You can either copy these off of the Linux SD card that came with the machine, or download new versions from the Always Innovating website.
• TouchBook users will also need a copy of the ‘mkimage’ tool that is supplied with the U-Boot sources. RISC OS users can install the RISC OS port of mkimage that is available from riscos.info. Linux users may have to build the tool from source.

Using SDCreate

The SDCreate main window is split into two sections – ‘Create image’ and ‘Write image’. Depending on which options are selected the ‘Run’ button at the bottom may or may not be greyed out.

WARNING

The code which writes images to SD cards hasn’t received thorough testing, and doesn’t ask for confirmation before beginning the write operation. So if you’ve selected the wrong drive you will lose all your data on that drive, and if you try interacting with the drive while the write is occuring then it will likely result in a corrupt image.

WARNING

If you want to create an image, and save it as a file:

• Select ‘Create image’
• Deselect ‘Write image’
• Select the right machine type
• Drag the RISC OS ROM image to the ‘ROM image’ box
• Drag the x-loader and U-Boot binaries into the x-loader and U-Boot boxes, if necessary
• Click ‘Run’

If you want to create an image, and write it straight out to a card:

• Select both ‘Create image’ and ‘Write image’
• Select the right machine type
• Drag the RISC OS ROM image to the ‘ROM image’ box
• Drag the x-loader and U-Boot binaries into the x-loader and U-Boot boxes, if necessary
• Select the SCSI drive number which your SD card reader has appeared under
• Click ‘Run’

If you want to write an existing SD image to an SD card:

• Select ‘Write image’
• Deselect ‘Create image’
• Drag the image file to the ‘SD image’ box
• Select the SCSI drive number which your SD card reader has appeared under
• Click ‘Run’

That’s it! If it all went well, you should now have a working SD card/image for use with your OMAP3 machine.

Windows/Linux/Mac/etc. utilities for writing SD card images

If you’re able to use SDCreate to create an image file, but are unable to use it to actually write the image to a card, then you can use any number of Windows/Linux/Mac utilities to do the job for you:

• Windows – Win32DiskImager
  • Just make sure the file has a .img extension for Win32DiskImager to find it
• Linux – UNetbootin
  • Or if you’re feeling adventurous, just use ‘dd’
• Mac – Installing MeeGo on your netbook
  • I’m not aware of any user-friendly utilities to do this on a Mac OS X machine, but the above instructions for writing a MeeGo Linux disc image onto a USB drive can easily be adapted for writing the SD card images created by SDCreate.

Creating SD cards manually

If you’re unable or unwilling to use SDCreate to create an image for you, then you can always create one manually. See the SDCreate !Help file for information about the SD card structure and how booting works, or alternatively this archived copy of an earlier version of this page, which contains information about a variety of different boot methods.

Putting the HardDisc4 image onto a USB drive

The OMAP3 port of RISC OS doesn’t yet contain a suitable driver to allow RISC OS to interact with the SD card slot. So your !Boot sequence must be placed on a USB drive instead. Here’s a brief guide of how to set up the drive:

If you have an existing RISC OS device with USB support

1. Format the USB device for use with RISC OS (e.g. RISC OS 5 users would use !SCSIForm)
2. Extract the HardDisk4 tar archive to the device using !UnTarBZ2 (!UnTarBZ2 is available from the same page as the HardDisk4 archive)

If you don’t have an existing RISC OS device with USB support

At the moment the only way to get around this problem is to get your OMAP3 machine (running RISC OS) to set up the boot sequence itself. Unfortunately a couple of bugs and limitations in RISC OS mean that this is currently slightly trickier than it could be, but the following should save you some time!

• First off, make sure you have a FAT formatted USB device which is formatted to under 2GB in size. If you want, this can be the same device that you’ll extract the boot sequence to, but it doesn’t have to be.
• Copy the self-extracting HardDisc4 archive (under Ancillary downloads) onto the device
• Also create file install,fd6.txt on the device by copying the code listed below. (The actual filename is unimportant.) N.B. If using Notepad or something similar under Windows, ensure Format→Word Wrap is unticked.
• Boot your OMAP3 machine into RISC OS from the SD card.

install,fd6.txt TaskExec (&fd6)

scsi
basic
5REM Turn off alignment exceptions on ARMv7 machines
10DIM code% 256
20P%=code%
30[ OPT 0
40SWI "OS_EnterOS" 
50MRC CP15,0,R0,C1,C0,0
60BIC R0,R0,#2
65\ replace above 'BIC' with 'ORR'
66\ to turn alignment exceptions back on
70MCR CP15,0,R0,C1,C0,0
80MSR CPSR_c,#&10
90MOV R0,R0
100MOV PC,R14
110]
120CALL code%
RUN
*changedynamicarea -ramfssize 32m
*ram
SAVE"RAM::RamDisc0.$.AOff" 
*scsi
NEW
10REM Create and save text file of instructions
20:
30REM Assumes a RAM disc is present
40:
50ONERRORCLOSE#x:REPORT:PRINT" at line ";ERL:END
60READline$
70x=OPENOUT"RAM::RamDisc0.$.HD4Instruct" 
80WHILE line$<>"" 
90BPUT#x,line$
100READline$
110ENDWHILE
120CLOSE#x
130*settype RAM::RamDisc0.$.HD4instruct &fff
140END
150:
1000DATA"        Creating your HardDisc4 boot disc" 
1010DATA"        =================================" 
1020DATA" " 
1030DATA"1. Connect the new device you want to format, and" 
1040DATA"   note its drive number on the icon bar." 
1050DATA"2. Unplug the FAT formatted device you used to get" 
1060DATA"   to this point, if you wish." 
1070DATA"3. To reformat this new device, run SCSIForm from" 
1080DATA"   its shortcut placed on the Pinboard." 
1090DATA"4. In the RAM::RamDisc0.$.HardDisc4 directory" 
1100DATA"   display, click Menu ‰ Select all." 
1110DATA"5. Drag the selection onto the iconbar drive icon" 
1120DATA"   for the newly formatted device." 
1130DATA"6. When copying is complete (i.e. Copying files" 
1140DATA"   window disappears), click Menu ‰ Dismount on" 
1150DATA"   the iconbar drive icon." 
1160DATA"7. You are now free to restart the machine, which" 
1170DATA"   will boot from the newly installed HardDisc4" 
1180DATA"   !Boot sequence." 
1190DATA"" 
RUN
NEW
10REM Run self-extracting HardDisc4 image
20REM which provides the !Boot sequence and
30REM SCSI ADFS formatter
40:
50REM Assumes a RAM disc of minimum size 32MB is present
60:
70*copy SCSI::0.HardDisc4/util RAM::RamDisc0.$.HD4 ~c
80*dismount :0
90*settype RAM::RamDisc0.$.HD4 &ffc
100*key0|m*delete RAM::RamDisc0.$.HD4|m*pin RAM::RamDisc0.$.HardDisc4.Utilities.USB-Mass.!SCSIForm 32 152|m*filer_opendir RAM::RamDisc0.$|m*filer_opendir RAM::RamDisc0.$.HardDisc4|m*filer_run RAM::RamDisc0.$.HD4instruct|m
110*key1|m|m|m|m|m|mREM **********************|mREM *      Finished.     *|mREM *   You may safely   *|mREM * CLOSE this window. *|mREM **********************|m|mQUIT|mshellcli_taskquit|m
120*fx15,0
130*fx138,0,128
140*fx138,0,129
150*/ RAM::RamDisc0.$.HD4
RUN
|

1. At the RISC OS Supervisor * prompt type desktop
2. If you get a “Message from Desktop” stating “Machine startup has not completed successfully: ‘The disc drive is empty’” this can be ignored so click Cancel
3. Click Select on the SCSI disc icon to open its directory viewer
4. You will see the install script, the HardDisc4 archive and any other files/directories which are on the device
5. Click Menu over the install script, navigate to File ‘install,fd6.txt’→Set type and (in place of whatever is shown) type fd6 or taskexec and press Enter
6. Run the install script by double-clicking on it¹ (This creates a RAM disc to act as temporary storage while the drive is formatted, copies the HardDisc4 archive onto the RAM disc, sets its file type to Utility, runs it in order to self-extract, then displays some instructions.)
7. If you get an Error message stating “No Boot application has been run on startup. Some facilities may not be available or set up correctly.” this can be ignored so click Cancel
8. Follow the instructions on screen to use HardDisc4.Utilities.USB-Mass.!SCSIForm (shortcut placed on the RISC OS Pinboard) to reformat the drive that you ultimately want the boot sequence to reside on and copy the contents of the HardDisc4 folder to this newly-formatted drive
9. You are now free to restart the machine, which will boot from the newly installed HardDisc4 !Boot sequence.

==If the above does not work for you, refer to a fully manual description previously present on this page.==

¹ Note that there’s currently a bug that will cause RAM disc creation to fail. As a workaround, the BASIC program listed here is run to disable alignment exceptions before trying to create the RAM disc. (This file is also saved to the root directory of the RAM disc. You’ll probably want to copy it across to your new HardDisc4 for future use as required by some programs at the moment.) Also note that even if you’re planning on reformatting a different drive to the one currently containing the archived boot sequence, you’ll still want to create a RAM disc to avoid any potential issues caused by extracting the boot archive onto a FAT-formatted drive.