hi there,

first of all, let me just thank anyone who has taken the time to read this
post.

needless to say, i'm kinda at the end of my tether trying to figure out what
the heck is going on ...

what i'm trying to do is run mv linux on an embedded PmPPC7448 PowerPC-Based
processor pmc module

my linux kernel is 2.6.10 and the artesyn board has the following
configuration,

CPU: MPC7448 v2.0 @ 999.999 MHz
Board: PM/PPC-7448
BusHz: 133333333
I2C: ready
DRAM: DDR SDRAM in slot 0 ECC 1024 MB
FLASH: [64MB@e8000000] 64 MB

my embedded physical memory map is as follows,

SDRAM - 0000,0000 to 3fff,ffff
FLASH - e800,0000 to ec00,0000

the bootloader is the board manufacturers version of u-boot with slimmed
down functionality

the FLASH memory is partitioned as follows,

e800,0000 - e810,0000 bootloader image
e810,0000 - e828,0000 compressed linux kernel image
e828.0000 - ea08,0000 compressed filesystem image

the filesystem image was prepared with the uboot "mkimage" tool in order to
incorporate the appropriate header data for u-boot to interpret the image as
a (gzip) compressed ramdisk

i've provided a script of my kernel boot below, and as you will see, the
kernel fails to mount the root fs. ramdisk support is built into the kernel
and i use the uboot command "bootm <kernel-addr> <fs-addr>" to boot

it seems to me that the ramdisk driver goes start, creates 16 devices
(/dev/ram0 to /dev/ram15 i guess) but it fails to mount the initrd. its
almost as if the kernel has not associated the <fs-addr> passed to uboot
with the /dev/ram ... ?

i can also see that uboot has loaded the ramdisk and relocated it at the top
of sdram, but can the kernel address this ?? from the script it logs that
the total memory is 768MB and not 1024MB (1GB) ... do i need to use the
kernel prompt argument mem= ?

are there any kernal build CONFIG_ issues that i need to address?

i'm confused as to how the initrd is associated with the /dev/ram device ...

what am i doing wrong? the target platform is diskless, so i need the kernel
to boot from flash with a root fs also located in flash.
i've successfully booted over nfs, but now i've hit a brick wall (ugh)

if anybody can help me then please, please do!!

many thanks,
-bill

*****************************
here is the boot script
*****************************

U-Boot 0.4.0 (Jul 14 2005 - 16:09:18)1.0

CPU: MPC7448 v2.0 @ 999.999 MHz
Board: PM/PPC-7448
BusHz: 133333333
I2C: ready
DRAM: DDR SDRAM in slot 0 ECC (Clearing..) 1024 MB
FLASH: [64MB@e8000000] 64 MB
PCI: Bus Host

Waiting For EREADY ('q' to exit w/o enum).
00 02 10b5 9656 0680 ff

Diags Mem: PASSED
Diags I2C: PASSED
Diags Flash: PASSED

Ser#: 1020
Mon: Resides 0x40000000 - 0x3ff359c0
BtDev: Soldered Flash
DCach: on (WriteThrough)
ICach: on
L2Che: on (WriteThrough)
Net: portdbg, porta, portb
Hit any key to stop autoboot: 0

PM/PPC-7448(1.0)=>printenv
baudrate=9600
cachemode=write
clearmem=on
dcache=on
ecc=on
enumerate=on
eready=on
icache=on
l2cache=on
model=PM/PPC-7448
powerondiags=on
eth_portb=auto
eth_frontpanel=auto
console=frontpanel
ecc_1bit_report=off
serial#=1020
netmask=255.255.255.0
serverip=192.168.1.114
gatewayip=192.168.1.1
bootdelay=2
tftpport=69
loadaddr=0x400000
rootpath=/opt/montavista/pro/devkit/ppc/74xx/target
bootfile=uImage.quad0
hostname=pico-ppc3
ipaddr=192.168.1.103
ethport=porta
eth_porta=100t_full
nfs_bootargs=setenv bootargs console=ttyMM0,9600 root=/dev/nfs rw
nfsroot=$(rootpath) ip=$(ipaddr):$(serverip)::$(netmask):$(hostname)::off
devfs=mount
nfs_bootcmd=dhcp ; run nfs_bootargs ; bootm
bootcmd=run nfs_bootcmd
ffs_bootcmd=run ffs_bootargs ; bootm e8100000 e8280000
ffs_bootargs=setenv bootargs console=ttyMM0,9600 ramdisk_size=7167
root=/dev/ram0 rw rootfstype=ext2 panic=10 initrd=e8280000,6ffc00
stdin=serial
stdout=serial
stderr=serial
bootargs=console=ttyMM0,9600 ramdisk_size=7167 root=/dev/ram0 rw
rootfstype=ext2 panic=10 initrd=e8280000,6ffc00

Environment size: 1043/1492 bytes

PM/PPC-7448(1.0)=>run ffs_bootcmd
## Booting image at e8100000 ...
Image Name: Linux-2.6.10_dev-pmppc7448-mod
Created: 2006-03-21 11:23:51 UTC
Image Type: PowerPC Linux Kernel Image (gzip compressed)
Data Size: 1123720 Bytes = 1.1 MB
Load Address: 00000000
Entry Point: 00000000
Verifying Checksum ... OK
Uncompressing Kernel Image ... OK
## Loading RAMDisk Image at e8280000 ...
Image Name: ram disk
Created: 2006-03-21 10:53:06 UTC
Image Type: PowerPC Linux RAMDisk Image (gzip compressed)
Data Size: 2398340 Bytes = 2.3 MB
Load Address: e8280000
Entry Point: e8280000
Verifying Checksum ... OK
Loading Ramdisk to 3fd2b000, end 3ff74884 ... OK
Total memory = 768MB; using 2048kB for hash table (at c0400000)
Linux version 2.6.10_dev-pmppc7448-mod (nkw@tobermoray) (gcc version 3.4.3
(MontaVista 3.4.3-25.0.70.0501961 2005-12-18)) #65 Tue Mar 21 11:23:48 GMT
2006
Calling the enumerate pci bus Code
PCI Autoconfig: Found Bus 0, Device 2, Function 0
PCI Autoconfig: BAR 0x10, Mem size=0x200, address=0x9ffffe00
PCI Autoconfig: BAR 0x14, I/O, size=0x100, address=0x3ffff00
PCI Autoconfig: BAR 0x18, Mem size=0x400000, address=0x9f800000
PCI Autoconfig: BAR 0x1c, Mem size=0x400000, address=0x9f400000
Artesyn Communication Products, LLC - PmPPC7447
Configured for Quad Slot 0
Built 1 zonelists
Kernel command line: console=ttyMM0,9600 ramdisk_size=7167 root=/dev/ram0 rw
rootfstype=ext2 panic=10 initrd=e8280000,6ffc00
PID hash table entries: 4096 (order: 12, 65536 bytes)
time_init: decrementer frequency = 33.333333 MHz
Dentry cache hash table entries: 131072 (order: 7, 524288 bytes)
Inode-cache hash table entries: 65536 (order: 6, 262144 bytes)
Memory: 774400k available (1796k kernel code, 544k data, 116k init, 0k
highmem)
Mount-cache hash table entries: 512 (order: 0, 4096 bytes)
spawn_desched_task(00000000)
desched cpu_callback 3/00000000
ksoftirqd started up.
desched cpu_callback 2/00000000
desched thread 0 started up.
NET: Registered protocol family 16
PCI: Probing PCI hardware
Thermal assist unit not available
JFFS version 1.0, (C) 1999, 2000 Axis Communications AB
JFFS2 version 2.2. (C) 2001-2003 Red Hat, Inc.
Generic RTC Driver v1.07
Serial: MPSC driver $Revision: 1.00 $
ttyMM0 at MMIO 0xf1062000 (irq = 36) is a MPSC
ttyMM1 at MMIO 0xf1068000 (irq = 38) is a MPSC
io scheduler noop registered
io scheduler anticipatory registered
io scheduler deadline registered
io scheduler cfq registered
RAMDISK driver initialized: 16 RAM disks of 7167K size 1024 blocksize
loop: loaded (max 8 devices)
pcnet32.c:v1.30i 06.28.2004 tsbogend@alpha.franken.de
MV-643xx 10/100/1000 Ethernet Driver
eth0: port 0 with MAC address 00:80:f9:81:00:14
eth0: RX NAPI Enabled
eth1: port 1 with MAC address 00:80:f9:82:00:14
eth1: RX NAPI Enabled
eth2: port 2 with MAC address 00:80:f9:83:00:14
eth2: RX NAPI Enabled
elevator: using anticipatory as default io scheduler
physmap flash device: 4000000 at e8000000
phys_mapped_flash: Found 2 x16 devices at 0x0 in 32-bit bank
Intel/Sharp Extended Query Table at 0x0031
Using buffer write method
cfi_cmdset_0001: Erase suspend on write enabled
cmdlinepart partition parsing not available
RedBoot partition parsing not available
Using physmap partition definition
Creating 6 MTD partitions on "phys_mapped_flash":
0x00000000-0x00100000 : "Monitor"
0x00100000-0x00280000 : "Primary Kernel"
0x00280000-0x02080000 : "Primary Filesystem"
0x02080000-0x02200000 : "Secondary Kernel"
0x02200000-0x04000000 : "Secondary Filesystem"
0x00100000-0x04000000 : "User FLASH"
NET: Registered protocol family 2
IP: routing cache hash table of 8192 buckets, 64Kbytes
TCP: Hash tables configured (established 262144 bind 65536)
NET: Registered protocol family 1
NET: Registered protocol family 17
Kernel panic - not syncing: VFS: Unable to mount root fs on
unknown-block(1,0)
<0>Rebooting in 10 seconds..

rhubarb!!