Boot image formats
On ARM-based systems in most cases one of two formats for boot images
is used: a) standard Linux zImage-format kernels
(vmlinuz
) in conjunction with standard Linux initial
ramdisks (initrd.gz
) or b) uImage-format kernels
(uImage
) in conjunction with corresponding initial
ramdisks (uInitrd
).
uImage/uInitrd are image formats designed for the U-Boot firmware that
is used on many ARM-based systems (mostly 32-bit ones). Older U-Boot versions can only
boot files in uImage/uInitrd format, so these are often used on
older armel systems. Newer U-Boot versions can - besides booting
uImages/uInitrds - also boot standard Linux kernels and ramdisk images,
but the command syntax to do that is slightly different from that
for booting uImages.
For systems using a multiplatform kernel, besides kernel and initial
ramdisk a so-called device-tree file (or device-tree blob,
dtb
) is needed. It is specific to each supported system
and contains a description of the particular hardware. The dtb
should be supplied on the device by the firmware, but in practice a
newer one often needs to be loaded.
Console configuration
The netboot tarball (), and the installer
SD-card images () use
the (platform-specific) default console that is defined by
U-Boot in the console
variable. In most cases
that is a serial console, so on those platforms you by default
need a serial console cable to use the installer.
On platforms which also support a video console, you can modify the
U-Boot console
variable accordingly if you would like
the installer to start on the video console.
Console configuration
The graphical installer is not enabled on the arm64 &d-i; images
for stretch so the serial console is used. The console device
should be detected automatically from the firmware, but if it is
not then after you boot linux from the GRUB menu you will see a
Booting Linux
message, then nothing more.
If you hit this issue you will need to set a specific console
config on the kernel command line. Hit e
for Edit Kernel command-line
at the GRUB menu, and change
--- quiet to
console=<device>,<speed>
e.g. console=ttyAMA0,115200n8.
When finished hit Control
x to continue booting with new
setting.
Juno Installation
Juno has UEFI so the install is straightforward. The most
practical method is installing from USB stick. You need up to
date firmware for USB-booting to work. Builds from &url-juno-firmware; after March
2015 tested OK. Consult Juno documentation on firmware updating.
Prepare a standard arm64 CD/DVD image on a USB stick. Insert it in
one of the USB ports on the back. Plug a serial cable into the
upper 9-pin serial port on the back. If you need networking
(netboot image) plug the ethernet cable into the socket on the
front of the machine.
Run a serial console at 115200, 8bit no parity, and boot the
Juno. It should boot from the USB stick to a GRUB menu.
The console config is not correctly detected on Juno so just hitting
&enterkey; will show no kernel output. Set the console to
console=ttyAMA0,115200n8
(as described in ). Control
x to boot should show you the &d-i; screens,
and allow you to proceed with a standard installation.
Applied Micro Mustang Installation
UEFI is available for this machine but it is normally shipped
with U-Boot so you will need to either install UEFI firmware
first then use standard boot/install methods, or use U-Boot boot
methods. You must use a serial
console to control the installation because the graphical
installer is not enabled on the arm64 architecture.
The recommended install method is to copy the &d-i; kernel and
initrd onto the hard drive, using the openembedded system
supplied with the machine, then boot from that to run the
installer. Alternatively use TFTP to get the kernel/dtb/initrd
copied over and booted (). After
installation, manual changes to boot from the installed image
are needed.
Run a serial console at 115200, 8bit no parity, and boot the
machine. Reboot the machine and when you see Hit any key to
stop autoboot:
hit a key to get a Mustang# prompt. Then use
U-Boot commands to load and boot the kernel, dtb and initrd.
Booting by TFTP
&boot-installer-intro-net.xml;
TFTP-booting in U-Boot
Network booting on systems using the U-Boot firmware consists of
three steps: a) configuring the network, b) loading the images
(kernel/initial ramdisk/dtb) into memory and c) actually executing
the previosly loaded code.
First you have to configure the network, either automatically via
DHCP by running
setenv autoload no
dhcp
or manually by setting several environment variables
setenv ipaddr <ip address of the client>
setenv netmask <netmask>
setenv serverip <ip address of the tftp server>
setenv dnsip <ip address of the nameserver>
setenv gatewayip <ip address of the default gateway>
If you prefer, you can make these settings permanent by running
saveenv
Afterwards you need to load the images (kernel/initial
ramdisk/dtb) into memory. This is done with the tftpboot command,
which has to be provided with the address at which the image
shall be stored in memory. Unfortunately the memory map can vary
from system to system, so there is no general rule which addresses
can be used for this.
On some systems, U-Boot predefines a set of environment variables
with suitable load addresses: kernel_addr_r, ramdisk_addr_r and
fdt_addr_r. You can check whether they are defined by running
printenv kernel_addr_r ramdisk_addr_r fdt_addr_r
If they are not defined, you have to check your system's
documentation for appropriate values and set them manually. For
systems based on Allwinner SunXi SOCs (e.g. the Allwinner A10,
architecture name sun4i
or the Allwinner A20,
architecture name sun7i
), you can e.g. use the
following values:
setenv kernel_addr_r 0x46000000
setenv fdt_addr_r 0x47000000
setenv ramdisk_addr_r 0x48000000
When the load addresses are defined, you can load the images
into memory from the previously defined tftp server with
tftpboot ${kernel_addr_r} <filename of the kernel image>
tftpboot ${fdt_addr_r} <filename of the dtb>
tftpboot ${ramdisk_addr_r} <filename of the initial ramdisk image>
The third part is setting the kernel commandline and actually
executing the loaded code. U-Boot passes the content of the
bootargs
environment variable as commandline to the
kernel, so any parameters for the kernel and the installer - such as
the console device (see ) or
preseeding options (see and ) - can be set with a command like
setenv bootargs console=ttyS0,115200 rootwait panic=10
The exact command to execute the previously loaded code depends on
the image format used. With uImage/uInitrd, the command is
bootm ${kernel_addr_r} ${ramdisk_addr_r} ${fdt_addr_r}
and with native Linux images it is
bootz ${kernel_addr_r} ${ramdisk_addr_r}:${filesize} ${fdt_addr_r}
Note: When booting standard linux images, it is important to load
the initial ramdisk image after the kernel and the dtb as U-Boot
sets the filesize variable to the size of the last file loaded and
the bootz command requires the size of the ramdisk image to work
correctly. In case of booting a platform-specific kernel, i.e. a
kernel without device-tree, simply omit the ${fdt_addr_r} parameter.
Pre-built netboot tarball
&debian; provides a pre-built tarball (&armmp-netboot-tarball;)
that can simply be unpacked on your tftp server and contains
all files necessary for netbooting. It also includes a boot
script that automates all steps to load the installer. Modern
U-Boot versions contain a tftp autoboot feature that becomes
active if there is no bootable local storage device (MMC/SD,
USB, IDE/SATA/SCSI) and then loads this boot script from the
tftp server. Prerequisite for using this feature is that you
have a dhcp server in your network which provides the client
with the address of the tftp server.
If you would like to trigger the tftp autoboot feature from the
U-Boot commandline, you can use the follwing command:
run bootcmd_dhcp
To manually load the bootscript provided by the tarball, you can
alternatively issue the following commands at the U-Boot prompt:
setenv autoload no
dhcp
tftpboot ${scriptaddr} /debian-installer/armhf/tftpboot.scr
source ${scriptaddr}
Booting from USB Memory Stick with UEFI
&boot-installer-intro-usb.xml;
Booting from a USB stick in U-Boot
Many modern U-Boot versions have USB support and allow booting from
USB mass storage devices such as USB sticks. Unfortunately the exact
steps required to do that can vary quite a bit from device to device.
U-Boot v2014.10 has introduced a common commandline handling and
autoboot framework. This allows building generic boot images that
work on any system implementing this framework. The &d-i; supports
installation from a USB stick on such systems, but unfortunately not
all platforms have adopted this new framework yet.
To build a bootable USB stick for installing &debian;, unpack the
hd-media tarball (see ) onto a
USB stick formatted with a filesystem supported by the U-Boot version
on your device. For modern U-Boot versions, any of FAT16 / FAT32 /
ext2 / ext3 / ext4 usually works. Then copy the ISO image file of the
first &debian; installation CD or DVD onto the stick.
The autoboot framework in modern U-Boot versions works similar to the
boot ordering options in a PC BIOS, i.e. it checks a list of possible
boot devices for a valid boot image and starts the first one it finds.
If there is no operating system installed, plugging in the USB stick
and powering up the system should result in starting the installer.
You can also initiate the USB-boot process any time from the U-Boot
prompt by entering the run bootcmd_usb0
command.
One problem that can come up when booting from a USB stick while using
a serial console can be a console baudrate mismatch. If a console
variable is defined in U-Boot, the &d-i; boot script automatically
passes it to the kernel to set the primary console device and, if
applicable, the console baudrate. Unfortunately the handling of the
console variable varies from platform to platform - on some platforms,
the console variable includes the baudrate (as in
console=ttyS0,115200
), while on other platforms the
console variable contains only the device (as in
console=ttyS0
). The latter case leads to a garbled
console output when the default baudrate differs between U-Boot and
the kernel. Modern U-Boot versions often use 115200 baud while the
kernel still defaults to the traditional 9600 baud. If this happens,
you should manually set the console variable to contain the correct
baudrate for your system and then start the installer with the
run bootcmd_usb0
command.
Using pre-built SD-card images with the installer
For a number of systems, Debian provides SD card images that contain
both U-Boot and the &d-i;. These images are provided in two variants
- one for downloading the software packages over the network
(available at &armmp-netboot-sd-img;) and one for offline
installations using a Debian CD/DVD (available at
&armmp-hd-media-sd-img;). To save space and network bandwidth, the
images consist of two parts - a system-dependent part named
firmware.<system-type>.img.gz
, and a
system-independent part named partition.img.gz
.
To create a complete image from the two parts on Linux systems, you
can use zcat as follows:
zcat firmware.<system-type>.img.gz partition.img.gz > complete_image.img
On Windows systems, you have to first decompress the two parts
separately, which can be done e.g. by using 7-Zip, and then
concatenate the decompressed parts together by running the command
copy /b firmware.<system-type>.img + partition.img complete_image.img
in a Windows CMD.exe window.
Write the resulting image onto an SD card, e.g. by running the
following command on a Linux system:
cat complete_image.img > /dev/SD_CARD_DEVICE
After plugging the SD card into the target system and powering the
system up, the installer is loaded from the SD card. If you use the
hd-media variant for offline installations, you must provide the
installer with access to the first &debian; CD/DVD on a separate
medium, which can e.g. be a CD/DVD ISO image on a USB stick.
When you come to the partitioning step in the installer (see ), you can delete or replace any previous
partitions on the card. Once the installer is started, it runs
completely in the system's main memory and does not need to access the
SD card anymore, so you can use the full card for installing &debian;.
The easiest way to create a proper partition layout on the SD card is
to let the installer automatically create one for you (see
).