[U-Boot] Booting kernel from NAND flash on AT91SAM9 custom board using fsload

[Nicholas Kinar]

Hello,

I've designed a custom circuit board based around the AT91SAM9RL64 
processor from Atmel.  This is an ARM9 AT91SAM9 series chip.  The Atmel 
evaluation kit for this processor is supported by U-Boot, and the 
configuration header file can be found in the u-boot-2010.09 source code 
distribution (/include/configs/at91sam9rlek.h).

To support my custom hardware, I've made small changes to the 
/include/configs/at91sam9rlek.h configuration file and to the files in 
the /board/atmel/at91sam9rlek/ directory.

On my custom circuit board, the AT91bootstrap first-order bootloader is 
loaded from SPI Dataflash.  In turn, the AT91bootstrap code loads U-Boot 
to SDRAM memory and then jumps to the load address.  The U-Boot binary 
is also stored on SPI dataflash.  I am able to successfully load U-Boot 
on my custom hardware, and I am able to use the nand subsystem commands 
to access the NAND flash.

I would like to use the fsload command to load the Linux kernel from a 
JFFS2 filesystem written to the NAND flash, but to me it is not 
immediately clear what I need to modify in the U-Boot code to be able to 
do this.  Perhaps the YAFFS filesystem would be more appropriate?

I've found several mailing list threads on a related question, but I 
still can't determine how to boot from NAND flash.  Does fsload only 
support NOR flash, or is it possible to use fsload on NAND flash?

[1] http://lists.denx.de/pipermail/u-boot/2007-December/027578.html
[2] http://www.mail-archive.com/u-boot@lists.denx.de/msg28173.html
[3] http://old.nabble.com/NAND-boot-from-file-td7930776.html
[4] 
http://blackfin.uclinux.org/gf/project/u-boot/forum/?_forum_action=ForumMessageBrowse&thread_id=17711&action=ForumBrowse

As suggested in thread [4] above, I tried replacing jffs2_1pass.c with 
jffs2_nand_1pass.c in the fs/jffs2 directory.

Also as instructed in the README.NAND, README.JFFS2 and 
README.JFFS2_NAND files found in the /doc/ directory, I've tried 
defining the following in my
/include/configs/at91sam9rlek.h configuration file:

#define CONFIG_JFFS2_NAND  1
#define CONFIG_CMD_JFFS2
#define CONFIG_SYS_MAX_FLASH_BANKS 1
#define CONFIG_CMD_NAND        1

However, after making these changes, the compilation process does not 
work, with the following error being reported:

make[1]: Entering directory 
`/home/nkinar/DEVICE-CODE/uboot/u-boot-2010.09/common'
arm-none-linux-gnueabi-gcc  -g  -Os   -fno-common -ffixed-r8 
-msoft-float  -D__KERNEL__ -DTEXT_BASE=0x23f00000 
-I/home/nkinar/DEVICE-CODE/uboot/u-boot-2010.09/include -fno-builtin 
-ffreestanding -nostdinc -isystem 
/home/nkinar/CodeSourcery/Sourcery_G++_Lite/bin/../lib/gcc/arm-none-linux-gnueabi/4.5.1/include 
-pipe  -DCONFIG_ARM -D__ARM__ -marm  -mabi=aapcs-linux 
-mno-thumb-interwork -march=armv5te  -Wall -Wstrict-prototypes 
-fno-stack-protector   \
         -o cmd_jffs2.o cmd_jffs2.c -c
cmd_jffs2.c: In function 'mtd_device_validate':
cmd_jffs2.c:172:24: error: expected '=', ',', ';', 'asm' or 
'__attribute__' before 'flash_info'
cmd_jffs2.c:172:24: error: 'flash_info' undeclared (first use in this 
function)
cmd_jffs2.c:172:24: note: each undeclared identifier is reported only 
once for each function it appears in
cmd_jffs2.c:172:35: error: expected expression before ']' token
cmd_jffs2.c: In function 'get_part_sector_size_nor':
cmd_jffs2.c:275:22: error: expected '=', ',', ';', 'asm' or 
'__attribute__' before 'flash_info'
cmd_jffs2.c:275:22: error: 'flash_info' undeclared (first use in this 
function)
cmd_jffs2.c:275:33: error: expected expression before ']' token
cmd_jffs2.c:279:2: error: 'flash_info_t' undeclared (first use in this 
function)
cmd_jffs2.c:279:16: error: 'flash' undeclared (first use in this function)
make[1]: *** [cmd_jffs2.o] Error 1
make[1]: Leaving directory 
`/home/nkinar/DEVICE-CODE/uboot/u-boot-2010.09/common'
make: *** [common/libcommon.a] Error 2

What do I need to update in U-Boot to be able to use fsload on my custom 
hardware?