[lug] TFTP, bootp, u-boot...ethernet drivers

[Michael J. Hammel]

On Wed, 2013-12-11 at 02:31 +0000, stimits at comcast.net wrote:
> I'm thinking I'd like to use tftp to start boot of an ARM9 embedded
> system running linux and not always flash the built-in memory. The
> u-boot boot loader claims there is no ethernet, but when in the
> current linux o/s that is installed networking works fine. What does
> one have to do to make an ethernet card available to u-boot prior to
> linux loading on a piece of hardware running u-boot when the BIOS does
> not provide NIC support?

I'm guessing with ARM9 there is no PCI so PCI enumeration in u-boot
doesn't help.  With the RPi the onboard eth is connected to a LAN9512
which is a dual usb 2.0 hub with eth10/100 support.  I'm guessing here,
but you probably need to add support for the particular chip supporting
the eth to u-boot.  Linux sees it cuz it has a lot more support out of
the box.  u-boot is typically tailored to specific boards.  I don't
remember exactly where in u-boot you have to do that.  It's possible the
support is already there but not turned on for the board you're booting.

FYI (UEFI): Linaro has a set of slides regarding UEFI and u-boot.
http://www.linaro.org/documents/download/9d9a8b1c9c6e2c484a548a5f75438d374fbe032728649
I think the gist is:  u-boot doesn't do uefi.  You gotta use edkII
instead.  Could be wrong about that, though.
-- 
Michael J. Hammel <mjhammel at graphics-muse.org>