How to get started with a Pandaboard (changes)

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A Basic Guide to Setting Up RISC OS on a Pandaboard ES

Introduction

RISC OS on the Pandaboard boots from an SD card in a similar manner to RISC OS on the Raspberry Pi. The bootable SD card needs to contain two partitions; one FAT16 ‘partition’ to contain the OMAP4 (Cortex A9) boot files and one RISC OS filecore ‘partition’ for all the RISC OS files. The instructions in this WiKi are intended to be used to create an SD card that boots in a Pandabaord and runs the RISC OS 5 operating system. Note for purists: Technically RISC OS does not understand the concept of disc partitions.

Peoples’ experiences in setting up their brand new Pandaboard seem to range from simply sailing through the set-up at one end of the scale to deep frustration and struggling to get anywhere at all at the other. My initial experiences were definitely of the latter type but, with some help from the ROOL Forum, I got there in the end.

Section 2.0 of this guide is based on a Pandaboard ES, Rev B3 – please let us know through the ROOL forum if it works or doesn’t work with other revisions. This guide assumes at least a little knowledge of RISC OS – if you’re not confident in using RISC OS then this guide is a good place to start. Finally, these steps were gleaned from my own struggles and experiences – they worked for me and I hope they work for you too.

Section 3.0 of this Wiki provides an alternative method of getting RISC OS running on all versions of the Pandaboard using a modified Raspberry Pi SD12a RISC OS SD Card Image. This method is much quicker and involves fewer steps, and should be less troublesome. However, the downside is that you will ‘only’ have around 2Gbytes of your SD card available to RISC OS (as on the standard Raspberry Pi images). If you want to get RISC OS running on your Pandaboard as quickly as possible, and you’ve already got an RPi running RISC OS, then this is a good option to take.

Full Installation of RISC OS Onto a Blank SD Card

Software: Prepare the SD Card

Before you begin: please note that this section has been prepared and tested using Piccolo’s !SystemDisc, which will enable you to use the full capacity of larger SD Cards. However, if you don’t have this software, or would prefer to prepare the SD card by hand, follow these instructions, then return to this Wiki and go to the ‘Hardware: Connect the Pandaboard’ section below.
To give an overview, if you use !SystemDisc to prepare the SD card, what you’ll be doing is:

1. formatting the SD card to FileCore
2. Using SystemDisc to create a FAT Partition
3. Copying bootloader files to that partition (the files are listed below)
4. Copying HardDisc4 files to the FileCore part of the card

You’ll need an SD Card of at least 2GB, preferably larger, and you’ll also need to download the following files (you may find it easier to unzip them all to the same folder).

Firstly, download the ROM image from the ROOL site. Once unzipped, for our purposes you’ll just need the file named ‘RISCOS’.

From the same site, you’ll also need ROOL’s HardDisc4 zip file.

Then download a CMOS file from openpandora.com. Note that it should be copied into the bootloader partition as the same time as the other bootloader files below.

Finally, the bootloader files; download this zip file.
Unzip the directory named ‘boot’ and from this folder delete the files ‘uenv/txt’ and ‘preenv/txt’ as these files are not required. For the purposes of this exercise, you won’t need the smartreflex directory right now either.

Next, rename ‘uenv_cmos/txt’ to ‘uenv/txt’. This file contains the code that loads the ‘cmos’ file into RISC OS.

At the appropriate stage of the !SystemDisc tutorial (linked to below), copy the following files into the FAT16 partition of the SD card (please note that these are slightly different from the ones given in the example in the tutorial):

CMOS
MLO
RISCOS
U-BOOT/IMG
UENV/TXT (renamed above)

Noting the above files, now follow the !SystemDisc Tutorial.

Hardware: Connect the Pandaboard

Before you begin connecting up things, take a look at the diagram on the Pandaboard Connection Guide (you may find things a little easier if you have the page open in a separate tab or page in your browser).

Things you’ll need in addition to your Pandaboard and SD card:

• A regulated 5V DC power supply, preferably of at least 2.5 amps. Anything less than 2.5 amps and you may experience problems with your keyboard and possibly unexplained random crashes. Having said that, if you use a powered USB hub for the keyboard and mouse then a good 2.0 amp regulated 5V power supply may well be sufficient.

• Either a HDMI cable if you have an HDMI capable monitor
  or
• An HDMI to VGA converter. I can’t comment on all the different kinds of converter but at different times I’ve used an un-powered ‘Cable Matters’ converter and a powered ‘1080 Ultimate’ converter and both have worked all right for me.

IMPORTANT: whatever you use, with RISC OS the HDMI cable or converter is connected to the outermost of the two output sockets at the rear of the Pandaboard (the socket described on the diagram referred to above as “DVI Out”). If you connect it to the inner one (the socket marked “HDMI Out” on the diagram) you won’t be able to see the desktop once your Pandaboard’s booted up. See this picture for the correct cable positions.

• A powered USB Hub (highly recommended – some people have reported experiencing various difficulties after connecting a keyboard directly to an on-board USB port).

• A USB Cable to connect the Pandaboard to the powered USB hub (if used).

• USB Keyboard and USB Mouse (or equivalents).

• Ethernet cable (if required).

• Speakers and microphone (if required).

Powering Up the Pandaboard

First, double check that everything is connected to whatever it needs to connect to. Refer to the connection guide above if needs be. Now insert the SD card into the Pandaboard and switch on the power; it’s not as fast as booting into the Raspberry Pi – it takes around 20 seconds for the first text to appear on the monitor.

It may be that you boot straight into the RISC OS desktop first time, in which case congratulations, you’re all done!

However, if you get the message

RISC OS 1024MB
Cortex-A9 Processor
Acorn SCSIFS 
No keyboard present - autobooting 
Waiting for boot device to be ready; press Escape to cancel

This means that the Pandaboard is trying to boot from a SCSI device instead of the SD card, in which case your ‘cmos’ file needs to be set to use SDFS as the configured boot filing system. Perform the following actions:

Press <Esc> to cancel
When you get into the desktop, press <F12> to get to the RISC OS command line and type the following:

*Configure FileSystem SDFS

Press <Return> twice to get back to the desktop and then reboot.

Your Pandaboard should now boot into RISC OS from the SD card.

Alternative Set-Up Method Using an RPi RC12a SD Card

This method assumes that you already have an SD card that has been flashed with the Raspberry Pi SD12a image (or newer). Ideally you have tested your SD card in a Raspberry Pi first and it all works OK, although this is not mandatory. This process has been tested on a rev. A3 Pandaboard, but the u-boot file references should now be suitable to all revisions of Pandaboard including ‘ES’ go-faster variants.

Download Pandaboard Files

Download the Pandaboard u-boot suite of files from:

dowload this zip file.

Download the current Pandaboard RISC OS ROM from:

download the ROM image

Download a Pandaboard CMOS file from:

openpandora.com: note this is a different download to section 2 above

There are four boot files in this zip file. Although they are intended for the Pandora, three of these files boot OK to SDFS on the Pandaboard. None are perfect. Use file ‘cmos1_1’ and rename it to ‘cmos’ and then use as the boot file required below.

Delete the Existing RPi Boot Files on SD Card

Using the computer of your choice (RPi, PC, Linux, Mac?), open the FAT16 directory on the RPi SD12a card. The following files should be seen:

BOOTCODE/BIN
config/txt
FIXUP/DAT
LICENCE/BROADCOM
START/ELF
riscos/img

Delete all of these RPi boot files. Alternatively, you could perform a quick format on this ‘drive’ using FAT16.

Prepare the Pandaboard Boot Files

Delete the Pandaboard files ‘uenv/txt’ and ‘preenv/txt’. These files are not required if an external ‘cmos’ file is to be used.

Rename ‘uenv_cmos/txt’ to ‘uenv/txt’. This file contains the code that loads the ‘cmos’ file into RISC OS.

Using the computer of your choice, copy the following files into the FAT16 ‘partition’ of the RPi SD card:

cmos TBA TBA 2,052
Mlo 06/09/2014 12:00 33,064
riscos 20/09/2014 04:40 5,242,880
u-boot/img 06/09/2014 12:00 208,540
uenv/txt 17/04/2012 07:25 100 (renamed above)

Put the SD card in your Pandaboard. Ensure that your HDMI monitor is plugged into the outermost (DVI) socket on your Pandaboard (nearest the right-hand edge when looking at the connector end). Power up the Pandaboard, and it should start to load the RISC OS operating system. Initially one or both green LEDs should be ‘on’. When the RISC OS modules are loaded both green LEDs go ‘off’.

Depending upon the contents of your ‘cmos’ file you might be lucky and boot into SDFS first time. If so then you have completed your Pandaboard RISC OS installation.

Change Boot Settings from SCSIFS to SDFS

However, if your Pandaboard boots into RISC OS with the following message:

RISC OS 1024MB
Cortex-A9 Processor
Acorn SCSIFS <- this means that boot is not set to SD card
No keyboard present – autobooting (Note: ignore this!)
Waiting for boot device to be ready; press Escape to cancel

This means that your ‘cmos’ file needs to be set to use SDFS as the configured boot filing system. Perform the following actions:

Press <Cancel>

Press <F12> to get to the RISC OS command line

Type the following:

*configure filesystem sdfs
*configure boot
*configure drive 0

Do a <CTRL> <BREAK> or press ‘reset’ to reboot the Pandaboard.

Pandaboard should now boot correctly to SDFS, and not SCSIFS.

That’s all folks…

Warning about RPi-Only Files

Closing Note: Using an RPi SD card on a Pandaboard means that you can quickly get a working copy of your RPi RISC OS set-up and running, with all the speed benefits this gives with a Pandaboard. Be aware however, that some RISC OS Relocatable Modules (RMs) are Raspberry Pi only. These RMs will not run under RISC OS on the Pandaboard. For example the ‘anymode’ module that can be sometimes found in !Boot.Choices.Boot.PreDesk on the RPi will stop the Pandaboard from completing its !Boot process. Networking will then not function correctly. I’m sure there are others… be warned.

Help !

NB if you need any further help, the ROOL Forum is extremely knowledgeable and friendly.