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Nuclei Linux SDK

Build and Test Linux SDK

Build Linux SDK Docker Image

Please check about each branch feature to learn which branch you should choose.

Tested Configurations

Docker

If you want to use it in docker image, please follow steps below:

Not tested for upload freeloader, need USB connection.

See How to evaluate Nuclei Linux SDK in docker

Ubuntu 20.04 x86_64 host

  • Status: Working
  • Build dependencies
  • Get prebuilt qemu and openocd 2023.10 from Nuclei Development Tools
  • Setup qemu and openocd and add it into PATH
  • mtools version >= 4.0.24

Build Instructions

Install Dependencies

Install the software dependencies required by this SDK using command:

sudo xargs apt-get install -y < .github/apt.txt
sudo pip3 install -r .github/pipreq.txt

Install Nuclei Tools

Download prebuilt 64bit openocd tool and qemu from Nuclei Development Tools, and extract it into your PC, and then setup PATH using this command:

>= 2023.10 release is required. You can install Nuclei Studio, which contains prebuilt openocd/qemu

# Make sure you changed /path/to/openocd/bin and /path/to/qemu/bin to the real path of your PC
export PATH=/path/to/openocd/bin:/path/to/qemu/bin:$PATH
# Check path is set correctly
which openocd qemu-system-riscv64

Fix nuclei riscv gdb run issue

You may meet with this issue: error while loading shared libraries: libgmp.so.3: cannot open shared object file: No such file or directory

# see issue https://github.com/Nuclei-Software/nuclei-linux-sdk/issues/5
sudo ln -s /lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libgmp.so /lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libgmp.so.3

If you met other strange issues not documented in this doc, please check Linux SDK Issues, if the existing issues not address your problem, please create a new issue

Clone Repo

Gitee Mirror not longer work, since linux mirror repo is blocked by gitee, see #10 (comment)

  • Checkout this repository using git.

Change the below dev_nuclei_5.10_v2 to your desired branch.

  • If you have good network access to github, you can clone this repo using command git clone -b dev_nuclei_5.10_v2 https://github.com/Nuclei-Software/nuclei-linux-sdk
  • Otherwise, you can try methods provided #10
  • If https is not stable, you can try ssh, please search about git clone ssh/https difference
  • Then you will need to checkout all of the linked submodules using:

    cd nuclei-linux-sdk
    # the following command might fail due to network connection issue
    # you can clone less code with --depth=1
    # you can also try some github mirror tech, search in baidu/google
    # if still not working, you can try our prepared source code(maybe out of date), see https://github.com/Nuclei-Software/nuclei-linux-sdk/issues/4
    git submodule update --recursive --init
    # if you want to clone less source code to speed up or make clone stable, please add extra --depth=1
    # --depth=1 is used to do shallow clone, see https://git-scm.com/docs/git-submodule#Documentation/git-submodule.txt---depth
    # git submodule update --init --depth=1
  • To make sure you have checked out clean source code, you need to run git status command, and get expected output as below:

    On branch dev_nuclei_5.10_v2
    Your branch is up to date with 'origin/dev_nuclei_5.10_v2'.
    
    nothing to commit, working tree clean
    
  • If you have trouble in get clean working tree, you can try command git submodule update --recursive --init --depth=1 again, you might need to retry several times depending on your network access speed.

  • If you still have issues, please check FAQ sections at the bottom of this README.md

This will take some time and require around 2GB of disk space. Some modules may fail because certain dependencies don't have the best git hosting. The only solution is to wait and try again later (or ask someone for a copy of that source repository).

Update source code

Update source code if there are new commits in this repo.

Assume currently you are in dev_nuclei_5.10_v2 branch, and the working tree is clean.

Then you run the following command to update this repo:

# Pull lastest source code and rebase your local commits onto it
git pull --rebase origin dev_nuclei_5.10_v2
# Update git submodules
git submodule update
# Check workspace status to see whether it is clean
git status

Switch branch

See #10

Show Help

You can run make help to show help message about how to use this Nuclei Linux SDK.

But if you want to change and adapt for your SoC, you need to understand the build system in Makefile.

Nuclei Linux SDK Integration

Here are the version numbers of sub projects used in Nuclei Linux SDK.

  • Linux 5.10.y
  • Uboot v2021.01
  • OpenSBI v0.9
  • Buildroot 2020.11.2

Our changes to support Nuclei Eval SoC are adapted based on above version.

Modify Build Configuration

You can choose different core configuration by modify the CORE ?= ux900fd line in Makefile.

We support four configurations for CORE, choose the right core according to your configuration:

  • ux600 or ux900: rv64imac RISC-V CORE configuration without FPU.
  • ux600fd or ux900fd: rv64imafdc RISC-V CORE configuration with FPU.
  • u900 or u900fd: rv32imac/rv32imafdc RISC-V CORE configuration.

You can choose different SoC by modify SOC ?= evalsoc line in Makefile.

  • demosoc: Deprecated, the demostration SoC from nuclei.
  • evalsoc: The next generation of the demosoc, we call it evalsoc, when your cpu has iregion feature, please use this one
  • you can add your SoC support by adding configuration in conf/$SOC folder refer to conf/evalsoc

You can check the dts difference for evalsoc and demosoc, for more details, need to check the Nuclei RISC-V CPU ISA spec.

  • Now evalsoc default cpu/peripheral frequency change from 100MHz to 50MHz from 2023.06
  • Now evalsoc ddr base address changed from 0xA0000000 to 0x80000000 from 2023.06, so previous bitstream will not work

You can choose different boot mode by modify the BOOT_MODE ?= sd line in Makefile.

  • sd: boot from flash + sdcard, extra SDCard is required(kernel, rootfs, dtb placed in it)
  • flash: boot from flash only, flash will contain images placed in sdcard of sd boot mode, at least 8M flash is required, current onboard mcu-flash of DDR200T is only 4M, so this feature is not ready for it.

Please modify the Makefile to your correct core configuration before build any source code.

For each SoC, in conf/$SOC/, it contains a build.mk you can specify qemu, timer/cpu/peripheral hz.

  • TIMER_HZ: implementation dependent, you can change timer frequency to different value to overwrite the one in dts.
  • CPU_HZ: implementation dependent, you can change cpu frequency to different value to overwrite the one in dts.
  • PERIPH_HZ: implementation dependent, you can change peripheral frequency to different value to overwrite the one in dts.
  • SIMULATION: implementation dependent, if SIMULATION=1, only the peripherals can be simulated in rtl will be present in dts, for demosoc/evalsoc, only uart will be present, qspi will not.

TIMER_HZ/CPU_HZ/PERIPH_HZ are all implementation dependent, it required your SoC dts implement this feature, currently demosoc/evalsoc all support this.

For each SoC, in conf/$SOC, it also contains a freeloader.mk, it is used to configure freeloader feature to set cpu configuration when bring up, such as configure cache, tlb, smp feature, for details, please refer to freeloader source code.

Booting Linux on Nuclei xl-spike

Note: xl_spike tool should be installed and added into PATH in advance. Contact with our sales via email [email protected] to get xl_spike tools.

This feature is deprecated now, please use Nuclei Qemu.

Run on xl_spike

If you have run make bootimages command before, please make sure you run make presim to prepare build environment for running linux in simulation.

When toolchain steps are finished, then, you can build buildroot, linux and opensbi, and run opensbi with linux payload on xlspike by running make sim.

Here is sample output running in xl_spike:

Log is not up to date, and may not working.

xl_spike --isa=rv64imac /home/hqfang/workspace/software/nuclei-linux-sdk/work/demosoc/opensbi/platform/nuclei/demosoc/firmware/fw_payload.elf
rv64 file
call xl_spike_t construct function
warning: tohost and fromhost symbols not in ELF; can't communicate with target
UART: 
UART: OpenSBI v0.9
UART:    ____                    _____ ____ _____
UART:   / __ \                  / ____|  _ \_   _|
UART:  | |  | |_ __   ___ _ __ | (___ | |_) || |
UART:  | |  | | '_ \ / _ \ '_ \ \___ \|  _ < | |
UART:  | |__| | |_) |  __/ | | |____) | |_) || |_
UART:   \____/| .__/ \___|_| |_|_____/|____/_____|
UART:         | |
UART:         |_|
UART: 
UART: Platform Name             : Nuclei Demo SoC
UART: Platform Features         : timer,mfdeleg
UART: Platform HART Count       : 1
UART: Firmware Base             : 0xa0000000
UART: Firmware Size             : 84 KB
UART: Runtime SBI Version       : 0.2
UART: 
UART: Domain0 Name              : root
UART: Domain0 Boot HART         : 0
UART: Domain0 HARTs             : 0*
UART: Domain0 Region00          : 0x00000000a0000000-0x00000000a001ffff ()
UART: Domain0 Region01          : 0x0000000000000000-0xffffffffffffffff (R,W,X)
UART: Domain0 Next Address      : 0x00000000a0400000
UART: Domain0 Next Arg1         : 0x00000000a8000000
UART: Domain0 Next Mode         : S-mode
UART: Domain0 SysReset          : yes
UART: 
UART: Boot HART ID              : 0
UART: Boot HART Domain          : root
UART: Boot HART ISA             : rv64imacsu
UART: Boot HART Features        : scounteren,mcounteren,time
UART: Boot HART PMP Count       : 16
UART: Boot HART PMP Granularity : 4
UART: Boot HART PMP Address Bits: 54
UART: Boot HART MHPM Count      : 0
UART: Boot HART MHPM Count      : 0
UART: Boot HART MIDELEG         : 0x0000000000000222
UART: Boot HART MEDELEG         : 0x000000000000b109
UART: [    0.000000] Linux version 5.10.0+ (hqfang@softserver) (riscv-nuclei-linux-gnu-gcc (GCC) 9.2.0, GNU ld (GNU Binutils) 2.32) #1 Fri Mar 19 14:47:22 CST 2021
UART: [    0.000000] OF: fdt: Ignoring memory range 0xa0000000 - 0xa0400000
UART: [    0.000000] earlycon: sbi0 at I/O port 0x0 (options '')
UART: [    0.000000] printk: bootconsole [sbi0] enabled
UART: [    0.000000] efi: UEFI not found.
UART: [    0.000000] Zone ranges:
UART: [    0.000000]   DMA32    [mem 0x00000000a0400000-0x00000000afffffff]
UART: [    0.000000]   Normal   empty
UART: [    0.000000] Movable zone start for each node
UART: [    0.000000] Early memory node ranges
UART: [    0.000000]   node   0: [mem 0x00000000a0400000-0x00000000afffffff]
UART: [    0.000000] Initmem setup node 0 [mem 0x00000000a0400000-0x00000000afffffff]
UART: [    0.000000] software IO TLB: mapped [mem 0x00000000abc8b000-0x00000000afc8b000] (64MB)
UART: [    0.000000] SBI specification v0.2 detected
UART: [    0.000000] SBI implementation ID=0x1 Version=0x9
UART: [    0.000000] SBI v0.2 TIME extension detected
UART: [    0.000000] SBI v0.2 IPI extension detected
UART: [    0.000000] SBI v0.2 RFENCE extension detected
UART: [    0.000000] riscv: ISA extensions acim
UART: [    0.000000] riscv: ELF capabilities acim
UART: [    0.000000] Built 1 zonelists, mobility grouping on.  Total pages: 63630
UART: [    0.000000] Kernel command line: earlycon=sbi
UART: [    0.000000] Dentry cache hash table entries: 32768 (order: 6, 262144 bytes, linear)
UART: [    0.000000] Inode-cache hash table entries: 16384 (order: 5, 131072 bytes, linear)
UART: [    0.000000] Sorting __ex_table...
UART: [    0.000000] mem auto-init: stack:off, heap alloc:off, heap free:off
UART: [    0.000000] Memory: 172900K/258048K available (2696K kernel code, 2811K rwdata, 2048K rodata, 128K init, 280K bss, 85148K reserved, 0K cma-reserved)
UART: [    0.000000] SLUB: HWalign=64, Order=0-3, MinObjects=0, CPUs=1, Nodes=1
UART: [    0.000000] NR_IRQS: 64, nr_irqs: 64, preallocated irqs: 0
UART: [    0.000000] riscv-intc: 64 local interrupts mapped
UART: [    0.000000] plic: interrupt-controller@8000000: mapped 53 interrupts with 1 handlers for 2 contexts.
UART: [    0.000000] random: get_random_bytes called from 0xffffffe000002910 with crng_init=0
UART: [    0.000000] riscv_timer_init_dt: Registering clocksource cpuid [0] hartid [0]
UART: [    0.000000] clocksource: riscv_clocksource: mask: 0xffffffffffffffff max_cycles: 0x179dd7f66, max_idle_ns: 28210892933900 ns
UART: [    0.001760] sched_clock: 64 bits at 100kHz, resolution 10000ns, wraps every 35184372085000ns
UART: [    0.022800] printk: console [hvc0] enabled
UART: [    0.022800] printk: console [hvc0] enabled
UART: [    0.041290] printk: bootconsole [sbi0] disabled
UART: [    0.041290] printk: bootconsole [sbi0] disabled
UART: [    0.065580] Calibrating delay loop (skipped), value calculated using timer frequency.. 0.20 BogoMIPS (lpj=1000)
UART: [    0.089740] pid_max: default: 32768 minimum: 301
UART: [    0.132740] Mount-cache hash table entries: 512 (order: 0, 4096 bytes, linear)
UART: [    0.152020] Mountpoint-cache hash table entries: 512 (order: 0, 4096 bytes, linear)
UART: [    0.324900] EFI services will not be available.
UART: [    0.359550] devtmpfs: initialized
UART: [    0.519290] clocksource: jiffies: mask: 0xffffffff max_cycles: 0xffffffff, max_idle_ns: 19112604462750000 ns
UART: [    0.543440] futex hash table entries: 256 (order: 0, 6144 bytes, linear)
UART: [    0.566050] pinctrl core: initialized pinctrl subsystem
UART: [    0.620770] NET: Registered protocol family 16
UART: [    1.452200] clocksource: Switched to clocksource riscv_clocksource
UART: [    1.624680] NET: Registered protocol family 2
UART: [    1.795650] tcp_listen_portaddr_hash hash table entries: 256 (order: 0, 4096 bytes, linear)
UART: [    1.818280] TCP established hash table entries: 2048 (order: 2, 16384 bytes, linear)
UART: [    1.849690] TCP bind hash table entries: 2048 (order: 2, 16384 bytes, linear)
UART: [    1.877280] TCP: Hash tables configured (established 2048 bind 2048)
UART: [    1.904640] UDP hash table entries: 256 (order: 1, 8192 bytes, linear)
UART: [    1.925370] UDP-Lite hash table entries: 256 (order: 1, 8192 bytes, linear)
UART: [    1.970120] NET: Registered protocol family 1
UART: [    2.043020] RPC: Registered named UNIX socket transport module.
UART: [    2.057540] RPC: Registered udp transport module.
UART: [    2.069730] RPC: Registered tcp transport module.
UART: [    2.082040] RPC: Registered tcp NFSv4.1 backchannel transport module.
UART: [    9.297610] workingset: timestamp_bits=62 max_order=16 bucket_order=0
UART: [   10.637960] io scheduler mq-deadline registered
UART: [   10.649850] io scheduler kyber registered
UART: [   18.585530] brd: module loaded
UART: [   19.555270] loop: module loaded
UART: [   19.697090] NET: Registered protocol family 17
UART: [   19.780090] Freeing unused kernel memory: 128K
UART: [   19.799080] Run /init as init process
UART: Starting syslogd: OK
UART: Starting klogd: OK
UART: Running sysctl: OK
UART: Starting mdev... OK
UART: modprobe: can't change directory to '/lib/modules': No such file or directory
UART: Saving random seed: [  130.621540] random: dd: uninitialized urandom read (512 bytes read)
UART: OK
UART: 
UART: Welcome to Nuclei System Techology
nucleisys login: root
root
UART: Password: nuclei

UART: # cat /proc/cpuinfo
cat /proc/cpuinfo
UART: processor	: 0
UART: hart		: 0
UART: isa		: rv64imac
UART: mmu		: sv39
UART: 
UART: # uname -a
uname -a
UART: Linux nucleisys 5.10.0+ #1 Fri Mar 19 14:47:22 CST 2021 riscv64 GNU/Linux
UART: # ls /
ls /
UART: bin      init     linuxrc  opt      run      tmp
UART: dev      lib      media    proc     sbin     usr
UART: etc      lib64    mnt      root     sys      var
UART: # 

If you want to remove the login, and directly enter to bash, please check Known issues and FAQ.

Booting Linux on Nuclei QEMU

From 2023.06, this branch will no longer work with Nuclei QEMU 2022.12 release, please take a try with Nuclei Qemu 2023.10 release.

Note: qemu-system-riscv64 tool should be installed and added into PATH in advance.

When the required changes has been done, then you can run make run_qemu to run riscv linux on Nuclei QEMU, here are the sample output.

You can check latest output in github action https://github.com/Nuclei-Software/nuclei-linux-sdk/actions/workflows/build.yml?query=branch%3Adev_nuclei_5.10_v2

The output may be out of date, take care.

Run on qemu for simulation
qemu-system-riscv64 -M nuclei_evalsoc,download=flashxip -smp 8 -m 2G -cpu nuclei-ux900fd,ext= -bios /Local/hqfang/workspace/software/nuclei-linux-sdk/work/evalsoc/freeloader/freeloader.elf -nographic -drive file=/Local/hqfang/workspace/software/nuclei-linux-sdk/work/evalsoc/disk.img,if=sd,format=raw

OpenSBI v0.9
   ____                    _____ ____ _____
  / __ \                  / ____|  _ \_   _|
 | |  | |_ __   ___ _ __ | (___ | |_) || |
 | |  | | '_ \ / _ \ '_ \ \___ \|  _ < | |
 | |__| | |_) |  __/ | | |____) | |_) || |_
  \____/| .__/ \___|_| |_|_____/|____/_____|
        | |
        |_|

Platform Name             : Nuclei Evaluation SoC
Platform Features         : timer,mfdeleg
Platform HART Count       : 8
Firmware Base             : 0x80000000
Firmware Size             : 156 KB
Runtime SBI Version       : 0.2

Domain0 Name              : root
Domain0 Boot HART         : 6
Domain0 HARTs             : 0*,1*,2*,3*,4*,5*,6*,7*
Domain0 Region00          : 0x0000000080000000-0x000000008003ffff ()
Domain0 Region01          : 0x0000000000000000-0xffffffffffffffff (R,W,X)
Domain0 Next Address      : 0x0000000080200000
Domain0 Next Arg1         : 0x0000000088000000
Domain0 Next Mode         : S-mode
Domain0 SysReset          : yes

Boot HART ID              : 6
Boot HART Domain          : root
Boot HART ISA             : rv64imafdcsu
Boot HART Features        : scounteren,mcounteren,time
Boot HART PMP Count       : 16
Boot HART PMP Granularity : 4
Boot HART PMP Address Bits: 54
Boot HART MHPM Count      : 0
Boot HART MHPM Count      : 0
Boot HART MIDELEG         : 0x0000000000000222
Boot HART MEDELEG         : 0x000000000000b109


U-Boot 2021.01-00021-g7e7c388fc6 (Nov 16 2023 - 16:06:13 +0800)

CPU:   rv64imafdc
Model: nuclei,evalsoc
DRAM:  2 GiB
Board: Initialized
MMC:   Nuclei SPI version 0x0
spi@10034000:mmc@0: 0
In:    serial@10013000
Out:   serial@10013000
Err:   serial@10013000
Net:   No ethernet found.
Hit any key to stop autoboot:  0
switch to partitions #0, OK
mmc0 is current device
Scanning mmc 0:1...
Found U-Boot script /boot.scr
725 bytes read in 22 ms (31.3 KiB/s)
## Executing script at 80200000
Boot images located in .
Loading kernel: ./uImage.lz4
4035022 bytes read in 9962 ms (395.5 KiB/s)
Loading ramdisk: ./uInitrd.lz4
6260962 bytes read in 15372 ms (397.5 KiB/s)
Loading dtb: ./kernel.dtb
4677 bytes read in 36 ms (126 KiB/s)
Starts booting from SD
## Booting kernel from Legacy Image at 83000000 ...
   Image Name:   Linux
   Image Type:   RISC-V Linux Kernel Image (lz4 compressed)
   Data Size:    4034958 Bytes = 3.8 MiB
   Load Address: 80400000
   Entry Point:  80400000
   Verifying Checksum ... OK
## Loading init Ramdisk from Legacy Image at 88300000 ...
   Image Name:   Initrd
   Image Type:   RISC-V Linux RAMDisk Image (lz4 compressed)
   Data Size:    6260898 Bytes = 6 MiB
   Load Address: 00000000
   Entry Point:  00000000
   Verifying Checksum ... OK
## Flattened Device Tree blob at 88000000
   Booting using the fdt blob at 0x88000000
   Uncompressing Kernel Image
   Using Device Tree in place at 0000000088000000, end 0000000088004244

Starting kernel ...

[    0.000000] Linux version 5.10.196+ ([email protected]) (riscv-nuclei-linux-gnu-gcc (GCC) 10.2.0, GNU ld (GNU Binutils) 2.36.1) #1 SMP Thu Nov 16 15:59:29 CST 2023
[    0.000000] OF: fdt: Ignoring memory range 0x80000000 - 0x80400000
[    0.000000] Machine model: nuclei,evalsoc
[    0.000000] earlycon: sbi0 at I/O port 0x0 (options '')
[    0.000000] printk: bootconsole [sbi0] enabled
[    0.000000] efi: UEFI not found.
[    0.000000] Initial ramdisk at: 0x(____ptrval____) (6262784 bytes)
[    0.000000] Zone ranges:
[    0.000000]   DMA32    [mem 0x0000000080400000-0x00000000fdffffff]
[    0.000000]   Normal   empty
[    0.000000] Movable zone start for each node
[    0.000000] Early memory node ranges
[    0.000000]   node   0: [mem 0x0000000080400000-0x00000000fdffffff]
[    0.000000] Initmem setup node 0 [mem 0x0000000080400000-0x00000000fdffffff]
[    0.000000] software IO TLB: mapped [mem 0x00000000f8475000-0x00000000fc475000] (64MB)
[    0.000000] SBI specification v0.2 detected
[    0.000000] SBI implementation ID=0x1 Version=0x9
[    0.000000] SBI v0.2 TIME extension detected
[    0.000000] SBI v0.2 IPI extension detected
[    0.000000] SBI v0.2 RFENCE extension detected
[    0.000000] SBI v0.2 HSM extension detected
[    0.000000] riscv: ISA extensions acdfim
[    0.000000] riscv: ELF capabilities acdfim
[    0.000000] percpu: Embedded 16 pages/cpu s25432 r8192 d31912 u65536
[    0.000000] Built 1 zonelists, mobility grouping on.  Total pages: 508030
[    0.000000] Kernel command line: earlycon=sbi console=ttyNUC0
[    0.000000] Dentry cache hash table entries: 262144 (order: 9, 2097152 bytes, linear)
[    0.000000] Inode-cache hash table entries: 131072 (order: 8, 1048576 bytes, linear)
[    0.000000] Sorting __ex_table...
[    0.000000] mem auto-init: stack:off, heap alloc:off, heap free:off
[    0.000000] Memory: 1943116K/2060288K available (4737K kernel code, 4114K rwdata, 2048K rodata, 192K init, 333K bss, 117172K reserved, 0K cma-reserved)
[    0.000000] SLUB: HWalign=64, Order=0-3, MinObjects=0, CPUs=8, Nodes=1
[    0.000000] rcu: Hierarchical RCU implementation.
[    0.000000] rcu: RCU calculated value of scheduler-enlistment delay is 10 jiffies.
[    0.000000] NR_IRQS: 64, nr_irqs: 64, preallocated irqs: 0
[    0.000000] riscv-intc: 64 local interrupts mapped
[    0.000000] plic: interrupt-controller@1c000000: mapped 53 interrupts with 8 handlers for 16 contexts.
[    0.000000] riscv_timer_init_dt: Registering clocksource cpuid [0] hartid [6]
[    0.000000] clocksource: riscv_clocksource: mask: 0xffffffffffffffff max_cycles: 0x1ef4687b1, max_idle_ns: 112843571739654 ns
[    0.000152] sched_clock: 64 bits at 32kHz, resolution 30517ns, wraps every 70368744171142ns
[    0.005554] Calibrating delay loop (skipped), value calculated using timer frequency.. 0.06 BogoMIPS (lpj=327)
[    0.006164] pid_max: default: 32768 minimum: 301
[    0.007659] Mount-cache hash table entries: 4096 (order: 3, 32768 bytes, linear)
[    0.008056] Mountpoint-cache hash table entries: 4096 (order: 3, 32768 bytes, linear)
[    0.035339] rcu: Hierarchical SRCU implementation.
[    0.037139] EFI services will not be available.
[    0.038848] smp: Bringing up secondary CPUs ...
[    0.054565] smp: Brought up 1 node, 8 CPUs
[    0.068145] devtmpfs: initialized
[    0.077972] clocksource: jiffies: mask: 0xffffffff max_cycles: 0xffffffff, max_idle_ns: 19112604462750000 ns
[    0.079010] futex hash table entries: 2048 (order: 5, 131072 bytes, linear)
[    0.080230] pinctrl core: initialized pinctrl subsystem
[    0.082885] NET: Registered protocol family 16
[    0.135375] clocksource: Switched to clocksource riscv_clocksource
[    0.145080] NET: Registered protocol family 2
[    0.148315] IP idents hash table entries: 32768 (order: 6, 262144 bytes, linear)
[    0.159118] tcp_listen_portaddr_hash hash table entries: 1024 (order: 2, 16384 bytes, linear)
[    0.159729] TCP established hash table entries: 16384 (order: 5, 131072 bytes, linear)
[    0.160308] TCP bind hash table entries: 16384 (order: 6, 262144 bytes, linear)
[    0.160827] TCP: Hash tables configured (established 16384 bind 16384)
[    0.162322] UDP hash table entries: 1024 (order: 3, 32768 bytes, linear)
[    0.162841] UDP-Lite hash table entries: 1024 (order: 3, 32768 bytes, linear)
[    0.165191] NET: Registered protocol family 1
[    0.170776] RPC: Registered named UNIX socket transport module.
[    0.171112] RPC: Registered udp transport module.
[    0.171325] RPC: Registered tcp transport module.
[    0.171569] RPC: Registered tcp NFSv4.1 backchannel transport module.
[    0.175933] Trying to unpack rootfs image as initramfs...
[    0.458953] Freeing initrd memory: 6108K
[    0.464111] workingset: timestamp_bits=62 max_order=19 bucket_order=0
[    0.481048] jffs2: version 2.2. (NAND) © 2001-2006 Red Hat, Inc.
[    0.483306] JFS: nTxBlock = 8192, nTxLock = 65536
[    0.492706] jitterentropy: Initialization failed with host not compliant with requirements: 2
[    0.493286] NET: Registered protocol family 38
[    0.493896] io scheduler mq-deadline registered
[    0.494293] io scheduler kyber registered
[    0.617645] 10013000.serial: ttyNUC0 at MMIO 0x10013000 (irq = 1, base_baud = 3125000) is a Nuclei UART/USART
[    0.621459] printk: console [ttyNUC0] enabled
[    0.621459] printk: console [ttyNUC0] enabled
[    0.623016] printk: bootconsole [sbi0] disabled
[    0.623016] printk: bootconsole [sbi0] disabled
[    0.660919] brd: module loaded
[    0.670166] loop: module loaded
[    0.672973] nuclei_spi 10014000.spi: mapped; irq=2, cs=1
[    0.688415] spi-nor spi0.0: is25wp256 (32768 Kbytes)
[    0.794097] ftl_cs: FTL header not found.
[    0.800598] nuclei_spi 10034000.spi: mapped; irq=3, cs=1
[    0.848205] mmc_spi spi1.0: SD/MMC host mmc0, no DMA, no WP, no poweroff, cd polling
[    0.851928] ipip: IPv4 and MPLS over IPv4 tunneling driver
[    0.857940] NET: Registered protocol family 10
[    0.871582] Segment Routing with IPv6
[    0.872680] sit: IPv6, IPv4 and MPLS over IPv4 tunneling driver
[    0.880401] NET: Registered protocol family 17
[    0.918304] Freeing unused kernel memory: 192K
[    0.924316] mmc0: host does not support reading read-only switch, assuming write-enable
[    0.925354] mmc0: new SD card on SPI
[    0.928375] mmcblk0: mmc0:0000 QEMU! 1.00 GiB
[    0.958953] Run /init as init process
[    0.961059]  mmcblk0: p1
Starting syslogd: OK
Starting klogd: OK
Running sysctl: OK
Starting mdev... OK
modprobe: can't change directory to '/lib/modules': No such file or directory
Saving random seed: [    4.833526] random: dd: uninitialized urandom read (32 bytes read)
OK

Welcome to Nuclei System Technology
nucleisys login: root
Password:
# cat /proc/cpuinfo
processor       : 0
hart            : 6
isa             : rv64imafdc
mmu             : sv39

processor       : 1
hart            : 0
isa             : rv64imafdc
mmu             : sv39

processor       : 2
hart            : 1
isa             : rv64imafdc
mmu             : sv39

processor       : 3
hart            : 2
isa             : rv64imafdc
mmu             : sv39

processor       : 4
hart            : 3
isa             : rv64imafdc
mmu             : sv39

processor       : 5
hart            : 4
isa             : rv64imafdc
mmu             : sv39

processor       : 6
hart            : 5
isa             : rv64imafdc
mmu             : sv39

processor       : 7
hart            : 7
isa             : rv64imafdc
mmu             : sv39

# uname -a
Linux nucleisys 5.10.196+ #1 SMP Thu Nov 16 15:59:29 CST 2023 riscv64 GNU/Linux
# mount /dev/mmcblk0p1 /mnt/
# ls /mnt/
boot.scr     kernel.dtb   uImage.lz4   uInitrd.lz4
# free -m
              total        used        free      shared  buff/cache   available
Mem:           1904          27        1856          14          21        1850
Swap:             0           0           0

Booting Linux on Nuclei FPGA Evaluation Board

Get Nuclei Eval SoC FPGA Bitstream from Nuclei

Demo SoC is deprecated, please use Eval SoC bitstream from Nuclei.

Contact with our sales via email [email protected] to get FPGA bitstream for Nuclei Eval SoC and get guidance about how to program FPGA bitstream in the board.

Nuclei Eval SoC can be configured using Nuclei RISC-V Linux Capable Core such as UX600 and U900/UX900, To learn about Nuclei RISC-V Linux Capable Core, please check:

Nuclei FPGA Evaluation Board, DDR200T/KU060/VCU118 are correct hardwares to run linux on it, click Nuclei FPGA Evaluation Board to learn about more.

Apply changes for your SoC

Before compiling this source code, please make sure you have done the following changes.

Now we have two version of SoC for customer to evaluate our RISC-V CPU IP, if the bitstream you get from us has the iregion feature, you should use evalsoc, otherwise choose demosoc(deprecated).

If there is double float fpu and isa is rv64 in the bitstream supported, you should choose ux600fd or ux900fd.

  • Default cpu/periph freq and timer freq are 16MHz and 32768Hz for demosoc.
  • Default cpu/periph freq and timer freq are 50Mhz and 32768Hz for evalsoc.

If the bitstream you get not matching above settings, please change co-reponsibing conf/<SOC>/build.mk's TIMER_HZ/CPU_HZ/PERIPH_HZ.

If you don't change this build.mk you can also change the dts files conf/<SOC>/*.dts to match the correct frequency.

For example, you have get a bitstream which is our ux900 series cpu ip, with double float fpu, and cpu frequency is 100MHz.

You should change SOC to evalsoc, CORE to ux900fd in Makefile.

And change CPU_HZ in conf/<SOC>/build.mk or CPUCLK_FREQ in the nuclei_rv64imafdc.dts and nuclei_rv64imac.dts in conf/$SOC/(conf/evalsoc for this case).

Build Freeloader

Make sure you have network access to outside world, buildroot will download required packages in build steps.

freeloader is a first stage bootloader which contains opensbi, uboot and dtb binaries, when bootup, it will enable I/D cache and load opensbi, uboot and dtb from onboard norflash to DDR, and then goto entry of opensbi.

To build freeloader, you just need to run make freeloader

Upload Freeloader to FPGA Evaluation Board

If you have connected your board to your Linux development environment, and setuped JTAG drivers, then you can run make upload_freeloader to upload the work/$SOC/freeloader/freeloader.elf to your board.

You can also use riscv-nuclei-elf-gdb and openocd to download this program by yourself, for simple steps, please see Known issues and FAQs.

Build SDCard Boot Images

If BOOT_MODE is set to flash, then no need to prepare the boot images, just program the freeloader.elf to on board flash, but it required at least 8M flash.

If you have run make sim command before, please make sure you run make preboot to prepare build environment for generate boot images.

If the freeloader is flashed to the board, then you can prepare the SDCard boot materials, you can run make bootimages to generate the boot images to work/$SOC/boot, and an zip file called work/$SOC/boot.zip , you can extract this boot.zip to your SDCard or copy all the files located in work/$SOC/boot, make sure the files need to be put right in the root of SDCard, then you can insert this SDCard to your SDCard slot(J57) beside the TFT LCD.

The contents of work/$SOC/boot or work/$SOC/boot.zip are as below:

  • kernel.dtb : optional, device tree binary file, this dtb is optional now, since freeloader.elf already contains dtb, we can use dtb inside freeloader.elf, and if you want to use a different device tree for linux kernel, you can change this dtb, and place it in sdcard, otherwise this dtb is not a required file for sdcard.
  • boot.scr : required, boot script used by uboot, generated from ./conf/evalsoc/uboot.cmd
  • uImage.lz4 : required, lz4 archived kernel image
  • uInitrd.lz4 : required, lz4 archived rootfs image

SDCard is recommended to use SDHC format. SDCard need to be formatted to FAT32 format, with only 1 partition.

Run Linux

When all above is done, you can reset the power on board, then opensbi will boot uboot, and uboot will automatically load linux image and initramfs from SDCard and boot linux if everything is prepared correctly.

If you met with issues, please check the Known issues and FAQ.

The linux login user name and password is root and nuclei.

Sample output in UART @ 115200bps, Data 8bit, Parity None, Stop Bits 1bit, No Flow Control.

Flow control must be disabled in UART terminal.

UART baudrate changed from 57600bps to 115200bps, due to evaluation SoC frequency by default changed from 8MHz to 16MHz or 50MHz, and now uart can work correctly on 115200bps.

The output may be out of date, take care.

OpenSBI v0.9
   ____                    _____ ____ _____
  / __ \                  / ____|  _ \_   _|
 | |  | |_ __   ___ _ __ | (___ | |_) || |
 | |  | | '_ \ / _ \ '_ \ \___ \|  _ < | |
 | |__| | |_) |  __/ | | |____) | |_) || |_
  \____/| .__/ \___|_| |_|_____/|____/_____|
        | |
        |_|

Platform Name             : Nuclei Evaluation SoC
Platform Features         : timer,mfdeleg
Platform HART Count       : 8
Firmware Base             : 0x80000000
Firmware Size             : 156 KB
Runtime SBI Version       : 0.2

Domain0 Name              : root
Domain0 Boot HART         : 0
Domain0 HARTs             : 0*,1*,2*,3*,4*,5*,6*,7*
Domain0 Region00          : 0x0000000080000000-0x000000008003ffff ()
Domain0 Region01          : 0x0000000000000000-0xffffffffffffffff (R,W,X)
Domain0 Next Address      : 0x0000000080200000
Domain0 Next Arg1         : 0x0000000088000000
Domain0 Next Mode         : S-mode
Domain0 SysReset          : yes

Boot HART ID              : 0
Boot HART Domain          : root
Boot HART ISA             : rv64imafdcbsu
Boot HART Features        : scounteren,mcounteren,time
Boot HART PMP Count       : 16
Boot HART PMP Granularity : 4096
Boot HART PMP Address Bits: 30
Boot HART MHPM Count      : 0
Boot HART MHPM Count      : 0
Boot HART MIDELEG         : 0x0000000000000222
Boot HART MEDELEG         : 0x000000000000b109


U-Boot 2021.01-00021-g7e7c388fc6 (Jun 09 2023 - 17:01:18 +0800)

CPU:   rv64imafdc
Model: nuclei,evalsoc
DRAM:  2 GiB
Board: Initialized
MMC:   Nuclei SPI version 0xee010102
spi@10034000:mmc@0: 0
In:    serial@10013000
Out:   serial@10013000
Err:   serial@10013000
Net:   No ethernet found.
Hit any key to stop autoboot:  0
switch to partitions #0, OK
mmc0 is current device
Scanning mmc 0:1...
Found U-Boot script /boot.scr
725 bytes read in 334 ms (2 KiB/s)
## Executing script at 80200000
Boot images located in .
Loading kernel: ./uImage.lz4
4030405 bytes read in 19703 ms (199.2 KiB/s)
Loading ramdisk: ./uInitrd.lz4
6261647 bytes read in 30264 ms (201.2 KiB/s)
./kernel.dtb not found, ignore it
Starts booting from SD
## Booting kernel from Legacy Image at 83000000 ...
   Image Name:   Linux
   Image Type:   RISC-V Linux Kernel Image (lz4 compressed)
   Data Size:    4034958 Bytes = 3.8 MiB
   Load Address: 80400000
   Entry Point:  80400000
   Verifying Checksum ... OK
## Loading init Ramdisk from Legacy Image at 88300000 ...
   Image Name:   Initrd
   Image Type:   RISC-V Linux RAMDisk Image (lz4 compressed)
   Data Size:    6260898 Bytes = 6 MiB
   Load Address: 00000000
   Entry Point:  00000000
   Verifying Checksum ... OK
## Flattened Device Tree blob at 88000000
   Booting using the fdt blob at 0x88000000
   Uncompressing Kernel Image
   Using Device Tree in place at 0000000088000000, end 0000000088004244

Starting kernel ...

[    0.000000] Linux version 5.10.181+ ([email protected]) (riscv-nuclei-linux-gnu-gcc (GCC) 10.2.0, GNU ld (GNU Binutils) 2.36.1) #1 SMP Fri Jun 9 17:03:39 CST 2023
[    0.000000] OF: fdt: Ignoring memory range 0x80000000 - 0x80400000
[    0.000000] Machine model: nuclei,evalsoc
[    0.000000] earlycon: sbi0 at I/O port 0x0 (options '')
[    0.000000] printk: bootconsole [sbi0] enabled
[    0.000000] efi: UEFI not found.
[    0.000000] Initial ramdisk at: 0x(____ptrval____) (6262784 bytes)
[    0.000000] Zone ranges:
[    0.000000]   DMA32    [mem 0x0000000080400000-0x00000000fdffffff]
[    0.000000]   Normal   empty
[    0.000000] Movable zone start for each node
[    0.000000] Early memory node ranges
[    0.000000]   node   0: [mem 0x0000000080400000-0x00000000fdffffff]
[    0.000000] Initmem setup node 0 [mem 0x0000000080400000-0x00000000fdffffff]
[    0.000000] software IO TLB: mapped [mem 0x00000000f8475000-0x00000000fc475000] (64MB)
[    0.000000] SBI specification v0.2 detected
[    0.000000] SBI implementation ID=0x1 Version=0x9
[    0.000000] SBI v0.2 TIME extension detected
[    0.000000] SBI v0.2 IPI extension detected
[    0.000000] SBI v0.2 RFENCE extension detected
[    0.000000] SBI v0.2 HSM extension detected
[    0.000000] riscv: ISA extensions acdfim
[    0.000000] riscv: ELF capabilities acdfim
[    0.000000] percpu: Embedded 16 pages/cpu s25432 r8192 d31912 u65536
[    0.000000] Built 1 zonelists, mobility grouping on.  Total pages: 508030
[    0.000000] Kernel command line: earlycon=sbi console=ttyNUC0
[    0.000000] Dentry cache hash table entries: 262144 (order: 9, 2097152 bytes, linear)
[    0.000000] Inode-cache hash table entries: 131072 (order: 8, 1048576 bytes, linear)
[    0.000000] Sorting __ex_table...
[    0.000000] mem auto-init: stack:off, heap alloc:off, heap free:off
[    0.000000] Memory: 1943116K/2060288K available (4731K kernel code, 4122K rwdata, 2048K rodata, 192K init, 333K bss, 117172K reserved, 0K cma-reserved)
[    0.000000] SLUB: HWalign=64, Order=0-3, MinObjects=0, CPUs=8, Nodes=1
[    0.000000] rcu: Hierarchical RCU implementation.
[    0.000000] rcu: RCU calculated value of scheduler-enlistment delay is 10 jiffies.
[    0.000000] NR_IRQS: 64, nr_irqs: 64, preallocated irqs: 0
[    0.000000] riscv-intc: 64 local interrupts mapped
[    0.000000] plic: interrupt-controller@1c000000: mapped 53 interrupts with 8 handlers for 16 contexts.
[    0.000000] riscv_timer_init_dt: Registering clocksource cpuid [0] hartid [0]
[    0.000000] clocksource: riscv_clocksource: mask: 0xffffffffffffffff max_cycles: 0x1ef4687b1, max_idle_ns: 112843571739654 ns
[    0.000091] sched_clock: 64 bits at 32kHz, resolution 30517ns, wraps every 70368744171142ns
[    0.010131] Calibrating delay loop (skipped), value calculated using timer frequency.. 0.06 BogoMIPS (lpj=327)
[    0.019897] pid_max: default: 32768 minimum: 301
[    0.027313] Mount-cache hash table entries: 4096 (order: 3, 32768 bytes, linear)
[    0.035186] Mountpoint-cache hash table entries: 4096 (order: 3, 32768 bytes, linear)
[    0.068054] rcu: Hierarchical SRCU implementation.
[    0.075897] EFI services will not be available.
[    0.089385] smp: Bringing up secondary CPUs ...
[    0.187866] smp: Brought up 1 node, 8 CPUs
[    0.202362] devtmpfs: initialized
[    0.227691] clocksource: jiffies: mask: 0xffffffff max_cycles: 0xffffffff, max_idle_ns: 19112604462750000 ns
[    0.237274] futex hash table entries: 2048 (order: 5, 131072 bytes, linear)
[    0.248870] pinctrl core: initialized pinctrl subsystem
[    0.264373] NET: Registered protocol family 16
[    0.407867] clocksource: Switched to clocksource riscv_clocksource
[    0.429260] NET: Registered protocol family 2
[    0.441894] IP idents hash table entries: 32768 (order: 6, 262144 bytes, linear)
[    0.493499] tcp_listen_portaddr_hash hash table entries: 1024 (order: 2, 16384 bytes, linear)
[    0.502899] TCP established hash table entries: 16384 (order: 5, 131072 bytes, linear)
[    0.515624] TCP bind hash table entries: 16384 (order: 6, 262144 bytes, linear)
[    0.532165] TCP: Hash tables configured (established 16384 bind 16384)
[    0.542694] UDP hash table entries: 1024 (order: 3, 32768 bytes, linear)
[    0.550628] UDP-Lite hash table entries: 1024 (order: 3, 32768 bytes, linear)
[    0.561370] NET: Registered protocol family 1
[    0.574340] RPC: Registered named UNIX socket transport module.
[    0.579925] RPC: Registered udp transport module.
[    0.584472] RPC: Registered tcp transport module.
[    0.589416] RPC: Registered tcp NFSv4.1 backchannel transport module.
[    0.598327] Trying to unpack rootfs image as initramfs...
[    4.828521] Freeing initrd memory: 6108K
[    4.844085] workingset: timestamp_bits=62 max_order=19 bucket_order=0
[    4.932403] jffs2: version 2.2. (NAND) © 2001-2006 Red Hat, Inc.
[    4.944885] JFS: nTxBlock = 8192, nTxLock = 65536
[    6.455963] NET: Registered protocol family 38
[    6.460235] io scheduler mq-deadline registered
[    6.464508] io scheduler kyber registered
[    7.040069] 10013000.serial: ttyNUC0 at MMIO 0x10013000 (irq = 1, base_baud = 3125000) is a Nuclei UART/USART
[    7.049835] printk: console [ttyNUC0] enabled
[    7.049835] printk: console [ttyNUC0] enabled
[    7.058288] printk: bootconsole [sbi0] disabled
[    7.058288] printk: bootconsole [sbi0] disabled
[    7.178802] brd: module loaded
[    7.289184] loop: module loaded
[    7.295959] nuclei_spi 10014000.spi: mapped; irq=2, cs=4
[    7.308898] spi-nor spi0.0: w25q128 (16384 Kbytes)
[    8.300964] ftl_cs: FTL header not found.
[    8.315277] nuclei_spi 10034000.spi: mapped; irq=4, cs=4
[    8.368408] mmc_spi spi1.0: SD/MMC host mmc0, no DMA, no WP, no poweroff, cd polling
[    8.380371] ipip: IPv4 and MPLS over IPv4 tunneling driver
[    8.398406] NET: Registered protocol family 10
[    8.417083] Segment Routing with IPv6
[    8.421417] sit: IPv6, IPv4 and MPLS over IPv4 tunneling driver
[    8.434722] NET: Registered protocol family 17
[    8.457489] Freeing unused kernel memory: 192K
[    8.490570] Run /init as init process
[    8.549285] mmc0: host does not support reading read-only switch, assuming write-enable
[    8.556854] mmc0: new SDHC card on SPI
[    8.575378] mmcblk0: mmc0:0000 NCard 29.1 GiB
[    8.628082]  mmcblk0: p1
Starting syslogd: OK
Starting klogd: OK
Running sysctl: OK
Starting mdev... OK
modprobe: can't change directory to '/lib/modules': No such file or directory
Saving random seed: [   15.487396] random: dd: uninitialized urandom read (32 bytes read)
OK

Welcome to Nuclei System Technology
nucleisys login:

Application Development

Quick help

You can run make help to show quick help message about how to use this linux sdk.

For detailed usage about components like buildroot, linux kernel, opensbi or uboot, please

check Reference.

Customize buildroot packages

You can customize buildroot packages to add or remove package in buildroot using command:

make buildroot_initramfs-menuconfig

The new configuration for evalsoc will be saved to conf/evalsoc folder, for when a full rebuild of buildroot is necessary, please check this link.

  • conf/evalsoc/buildroot_initramfs_rv64imac_config: The buildroot configuration for RISC-V ISA/ARCH is rv64imac, such as ux600 and ux900
  • conf/evalsoc/buildroot_initramfs_rv64imafdc_config: The buildroot configuration for for RISC-V ISA/ARCH is rv64imafdc, such as ux600fd and ux900fd
  • conf/evalsoc/buildroot_initramfs_rv32imac_config: The buildroot configuration for RISC-V ISA/ARCH is rv32imac, such as u900
  • conf/evalsoc/buildroot_initramfs_rv32imafdc_config: The buildroot configuration for for RISC-V ISA/ARCH is rv32imafdc, such as u900fd

By default, we add many packages in buildroot default configuration, you can remove the packages you dont need in configuration to generate smaller rootfs, a full rebuild of SDK is required for removing buildroot package.

Customize kernel configuration

You can customize linux kernel configuration using command make linux-menuconfig, the new configuration will be saved to conf folder

  • conf/evalsoc/linux_rv64imac_defconfig: The linux kernel configuration for RISC-V rv64imac ARCH.
  • conf/evalsoc/linux_rv64imafdc_defconfig: The linux kernel configuration for RISC-V rv64imafdc ARCH.
  • conf/evalsoc/linux_rv32imac_defconfig: The linux kernel configuration for RISC-V rv32imac ARCH.
  • conf/evalsoc/linux_rv32imafdc_defconfig: The linux kernel configuration for RISC-V rv32imafdc ARCH.
  • conf/evalsoc/nuclei_rv64imac.dts: Device tree for RISC-V rv64imac ARCH used in hardware
  • conf/evalsoc/nuclei_rv64imafdc.dts: Device tree for RISC-V rv64imafdc ARCH used in hardware
  • conf/evalsoc/nuclei_rv32imac.dts: Device tree for RISC-V rv32imac ARCH used in hardware
  • conf/evalsoc/nuclei_rv32imafdc.dts: Device tree for RISC-V rv32imafdc ARCH used in hardware

xlspike dts are only used internally

  • conf/evalsoc/nuclei_rv64imac_sim.dts: Device tree for RISC-V rv64imac ARCH used in xlspike simulation
  • conf/evalsoc/nuclei_rv64imafdc_sim.dts: Device tree for RISC-V rv64imafdc ARCH used in xlspike simulation

Customize uboot configuration

You can customize linux kernel configuration using command make uboot-menuconfig, the new configuration will be saved to conf folder

  • conf/evalsoc/uboot_rv64imac_flash_config: uboot configuration for RISC-V rv64imac ARCH, flash boot mode
  • conf/evalsoc/uboot_rv64imafdc_flash_config: uboot configuration for RISC-V rv64imafdc ARCH, flash boot mode
  • conf/evalsoc/uboot_rv64imac_sd_config: uboot configuration for RISC-V rv64imac ARCH, flash boot mode
  • conf/evalsoc/uboot_rv64imafdc_sd_config: uboot configuration for RISC-V rv64imafdc ARCH, sd boot mode
  • conf/evalsoc/uboot_rv32imac_flash_config: uboot configuration for RISC-V rv32imac ARCH, flash boot mode
  • conf/evalsoc/uboot_rv32imafdc_flash_config: uboot configuration for RISC-V rv32imafdc ARCH, flash boot mode
  • conf/evalsoc/uboot_rv32imac_sd_config: uboot configuration for RISC-V rv32imac ARCH, flash boot mode
  • conf/evalsoc/uboot_rv32imafdc_sd_config: uboot configuration for RISC-V rv32imafdc ARCH, sd boot mode

Remove generated boot images

You can remove generated boot images using command make cleanboot.

Prebuilt applications with RootFS

If you want to do application development in Linux with FPGA Evaluation board, please follow these steps.

Currently, SDCard is not working in Linux, so if you want to put your own application, and run it in linux, you have to add your application into rootfs and rebuild it, and use the newly generated boot images, and put it into SDCard.

For example, I would like to compile new dhrystone application and run it in linux.

  1. Make sure you have built boot images, using make bootimages

  2. Copy the old dhrystone source code from work/$SOC/buildroot_initramfs/build/dhrystone-2 to work/$SOC/buildroot_initramfs/build/dhrystone-3

  3. cd to work/$SOC/buildroot_initramfs/build/dhrystone-3, and modify Makefile as below:

    # Make sure you use the compiler in this path below
    CC = ../../host/bin/riscv-nuclei-linux-gnu-gcc
    CPPFLAGS += -DNO_PROTOTYPES=1 -DHZ=100
    # Customized optimization options
    CFLAGS +=  -O2 -flto -funroll-all-loops -finline-limit=600 \
             -ftree-dominator-opts -fno-if-conversion2 -fselective-scheduling \
             -fno-code-hoisting -fno-common -funroll-loops -finline-functions \
             -falign-functions=4 -falign-jumps=4 -falign-loops=4
    LDLIBS += -lm
    
    all: dhrystone
    
    dhrystone: dhry_1.o dhry_2.o
       $(CC) $(CFLAGS) $(LDFLAGS) -o $@ $^ $(LDLIBS)
    
    clean:
       rm -f *.o dhrystone
    
    .PHONY: all clean
  4. Run make clean all to rebuild this dhrystone

  5. Copy generated dhrystone to previous generated buildroot_initramfs_sysroot folder, using command cp dhrystone ../../../buildroot_initramfs_sysroot/usr/bin/dhrystone_opt

  6. cd to Nuclei linux SDK root, and run make preboot to clean previously generated boot images.

  7. Generate new boot images with dhrystone_opt application added using command make bootimages

  8. Download the generated work/$SOC/boot.zip and extract it right under the SDCard root.

  9. If you have already flashed freeloader using openocd, then just insert the SDCard, and reboot the board, when board is power on, and linux kernel is up, you can run the application dhrystone_opt in linux shell.

Put prebuilt applications into SDCard

In the lastest commits since 079414d, sdcard can be initialized successfully during kernel boot.

Sample console output of kernel init message for sdcard ready.

[  124.646575] mmcblk0: mmc0:0000 SA08G 7.21 GiB
[  125.242645]  mmcblk0: p1

Note: Currently the sdcard driver is using polling mode as temporary workaround.

When you have login the linux system, you can run command below to check whether sdcard is initialized successfully.

# ls -l /dev/mmc*
brw-rw----    1 root     root      179,   0 Jan  1 00:04 /dev/mmcblk0
brw-rw----    1 root     root      179,   1 Jan  1 00:04 /dev/mmcblk0p1

If there are /dev/mmcblk0p1 devices, then you can mount sdcard in mnt directory using command:

# Mount /dev/mmcblk0p1 into /mnt
mount -t vfat /dev/mmcblk0p1 /mnt
# Check whether sdcard is mounted successfully
ls -l /mnt

If you want to put your prebuilt applications into SDCard, you need to unmount the sdcard first using umount /mnt, and then eject the sdcard from the tf slot, and then insert the sdcard to sdcard reader and connect to your PC, and copy your prebuilt applications into SDCard.

When your applications are placed into the sdcard correctly, then you can insert your card into tf slot, and mount it into /mnt directory.

For example, if you have an application called coremark, then you can directly run it using /mnt/coremark.

Port to your target

demosoc is deprecated, please take evalsoc as example.

For our current development evalsoc, we used the following resources:

  • RV64IMAC or RV64IMAFDC Core, with 16 PMP entries

  • DDR RAM: 0x80000000 - 0x100000000, 2GB, DDR RAM is seperated to place opensbi, uboot, kernel, rootfs, dtb binaries.

  • I/D Cache enabled

  • UART @ 0x10013000

  • PLIC @ 0x1C000000

  • QSPI @ 0x10034000, which connect to SDCard, SDCard will be used when boot from SDCard

  • QSPI @ 0x10014000, which connect to XIP SPIFlash 4M, memory mapped started at 0x20000000.

    SPIFlash is used to place freeloader, which contains opensbi, uboot, dtb, and optional kernel and rootfs when flash-only boot is performed. Flash-only boot will required at least 8M flash.

To basically port this SDK to match your target, you can make a copy of conf/evalsoc such as conf/nsoc:

  • freeloader.mk: change the variable defined in this mk to match your design

    • DDR_BASE, FLASH_BASE and FLASH_SIZE are used to set DDR base address and Flash base address and size used by freeloader.
    • If you want to use SMP linux, you need to set ENABLE_SMP and ENABLE_L2 to 1
    • If you only have 1 core, please make sure ENABLE_SMP and ENABLE_L2 is 0
    • If you will not using amp mode, please set AMP_START_CORE to max hart id, for example, if you have four core, change it to 4.
    • CACHE_CTRL and TLB_CTRL is used to control L1/L2 cache control CSR mcache_ctl and TLB CTRL csr mtlb_ctl
    • SPFL1DCTRL1, SPFL1DCTRL2 and MERGL1DCTRL are used to control L1 DCache Prefetch and Write Streaming or Merge Control registers spfl1dctrl1, spfl1dctrl2 and mergel1dctrl
  • build.mk:

    • Change UIMAGE_AE_CMD to match your DDR base, used by Makefile to generate rootfs for uboot.
    • If you have qemu support, you can change your qemu machine options QEMU_MACHINE_OPTS to match your qemu machine.
    • If you are using AMP, CORE1_APP_BIN, CORE2_APP_BIN, CORE3_APP_BIN, CORE4_APP_BIN, CORE5_APP_BIN, CORE6_APP_BIN and CORE7_APP_BIN need to be configured, CORE1-CORE7 each memory is default 4MB(configured by AMPFW_SIZE) and application base address is default offset 0x7E000000(configured by AMPFW_START_OFFSET) at DDR base, you can refer to #18 for how to use AMP demo.

      Here each core memory is changed from 8M to 4M, due to only 32MB is reserved for amp binaries, and now we support 8 cores.

      • CORE1_APP_BIN start offset is DDR_BASE + 0x7E000000, such as $(confdir)/amp/c1.bin
      • CORE2_APP_BIN start offset is DDR_BASE + 0x7E000000 + 4M, such as $(confdir)/amp/c2.bin
      • CORE3_APP_BIN start offset is DDR_BASE + 0x7E000000 + 4M*2, such as $(confdir)/amp/c3.bin
      • CORE4_APP_BIN start offset is DDR_BASE + 0x7E000000 + 4M*3, such as $(confdir)/amp/c4.bin
      • CORE5_APP_BIN start offset is DDR_BASE + 0x7E000000 + 4M*4, such as $(confdir)/amp/c5.bin
      • CORE6_APP_BIN start offset is DDR_BASE + 0x7E000000 + 4M*5, such as $(confdir)/amp/c6.bin
      • CORE7_APP_BIN start offset is DDR_BASE + 0x7E000000 + 4M*6, such as $(confdir)/amp/c7.bin
    • TIMER_HZ, CPU_HZ, PERIPH_HZ are used by *.dts files to generate correct timer, cpu, peripheral clock hz, if you directly set it in dts, not need for this variables.
  • opensbi/: Change the opensbi support code for your soc, all the files need to be modified.

  • nuclei_rv32imac.dts, nuclei_rv32imafdc.dts, nuclei_rv64imac.dts, nuclei_rv64imafdc.dts and openocd.cfg: Change these files to match your SoC design.

    • Select the right dts which match your cpu isa, for example, if you are using rv64imafdc, please use nuclei_rv64imafdc.dts
    • External interrupts connected to plic interrupt number started from 1, 0 is reserved. For example, in evalsoc, interrupt id of UART0 is 32, then plic interrupt number is 33, and if elic also present, the eclic interrupt number will be 32+19=51
    • If you want to boot linux using hvc console(console via sbi console, useful when uart driver in linux is not ready), you can change bootargs to make console=/dev/hvc0, then it will use sbi console to print message
    • If you UART driver in linux is ready, then you can change the console to your real uart device name.
  • uboot.cmd: Change to match your memory map.

  • uboot_rv64imac_sd_config, uboot_rv64imac_flash_config, uboot_rv64imafdc_sd_config and uboot_rv64imafdc_flash_config:

  • uboot_rv32imac_sd_config, uboot_rv32imac_flash_config, uboot_rv32imafdc_sd_config and uboot_rv32imafdc_flash_config: change CONFIG_SYS_TEXT_BASE and CONFIG_BOOTCOMMAND to match your uboot system text address and boot command address.

  • If you have a lot of changes in uboot or linux, please directly change code in it.

In evalsoc support, spmp bypass is controlled by code in conf/evalsoc/opensbi/platform.c for opensbi v0.9, conf/evalsoc/opensbi/evalsoc.c for opensbi >= v1.2

From commit 6507c68 on, the spmp will be bypassed(done in code as below) when tee is present(checked mcfg_info csr). If you have enabled TEE feature(sPMP module included), you need to configure spmp csr registers as this commit https://github.com/Nuclei-Software/opensbi/commit/1d28050d01b93b6afe590487324b663c65a2c429 . Then you will be able to boot up linux kernel, otherwise the init process will fail.

Known issues and FAQs

Please also track issues located in https://github.com/Nuclei-Software/nuclei-linux-sdk/issues

  • Clone source code from github or gitee failed with issue the remote end hung up unexpectedly.

    see #10 for up to date answer.

    This Nuclei Linux SDK repo is a very big repo with many submodules, just simple clone is not enough, you always need to do submodule init and update, sometimes due to connection issue or http clone not stable issue, please switch to use ssh protocol used in git clone, see similar issue posted in stackoverflow, see https://stackoverflow.com/questions/6842687/the-remote-end-hung-up-unexpectedly-while-git-cloning

    Or you can try shallow submodule update:

    ## clone repo from github
    git clone https://github.com/Nuclei-Software/nuclei-linux-sdk.git
    ## if github is not working please use gitee, no longer working, deprecated now, see https://github.com/Nuclei-Software/nuclei-linux-sdk/issues/10#issuecomment-1728920670
    # git clone https://gitee.com/Nuclei-Software/nuclei-linux-sdk.git
    ## if https is not ok, please switch to ssh method, but you need to follow guidance in github or gitee
    ## github: https://docs.github.com/cn/authentication/connecting-to-github-with-ssh/generating-a-new-ssh-key-and-adding-it-to-the-ssh-agent
    ## gitee: https://gitee.com/help/articles/4181
    cd nuclei-linux-sdk
    git submodule update --init --depth=1
    ## please check sample output here: https://github.com/Nuclei-Software/nuclei-linux-sdk/wiki/Sample-Outputs#sample-output-for-git-clone

    Or you just want to get latest source code without any git histories, you can also open our repo's github action link in github https://github.com/Nuclei-Software/nuclei-linux-sdk/actions , make sure your github is logged in, and then click on any successful action of your desired branch, and find the nuclei_linux_sdk_source in the Artifacts at the bottom of page, and click the nuclei_linux_sdk_source and download it.

  • For Nuclei Demo SoC, if you run simulation using xl_spike, it can run to login prompt, but when you login, it will show timeout issue, this is caused by xl_spike timer is not standard type, but the boot images for FPGA evaluation board can boot successfully and works well.

    If you want to execute using xl_spike without the login, you can edit the work/$SOC/buildroot_initramfs_sysroot/etc/inittab file(started from # now run any rc scripts) as below, and save it:

    # now run any rc scripts
    #::sysinit:/etc/init.d/rcS
    
    # Put a getty on the serial port
    #console::respawn:/sbin/getty -L  console 0 vt100 # GENERIC_SERIAL
    ::respawn:-/bin/sh
    

    And then type make presim and make sim to run linux in xl_spike, you will be able to get following output in final:

    ## a lot of boot message are reduced here ##
    UART: [  246.974853] sdhci: Secure Digital Host Controller Interface driver
    UART: [  247.057922] sdhci: Copyright(c) Pierre Ossman
    UART: [  247.447723] NET: Registered protocol family 17
    UART: [  266.205169] Freeing unused kernel memory: 36052K
    UART: [  266.314117] Run /init as init process
    UART: # ls
    ls
    UART: bin      init     linuxrc  opt      run      tmp
    UART: dev      lib      media    proc     sbin     usr
    UART: etc      lib64    mnt      root     sys      var
    UART: # cat /proc/cpuinfo
    cat /proc/cpuinfo
    UART: processor	: 0
    UART: hart		: 0
    UART: isa		: rv64imac
    UART: mmu		: sv39
    UART:
    
  • For some SDCard format, it might not be supported, please check your SDCard is SDHC format.

  • If you can't boot with the sdcard boot images, you can run the following commands in uboot to check whether sdcard is recognized.

    1. Type mmcinfo to check whether sdcard is recognized? If no output, please re-insert the sdcard, and try this command again, if still not working, please confirm that the MCS is correct or not?

      Hit any key to stop autoboot:  0
      => mmcinfo
      Device: spi@10034000:mmc@0
      Manufacturer ID: 2
      OEM: 544d
      Name: SA08G
      Bus Speed: 20000000
      Mode: MMC legacy
      Rd Block Len: 512
      SD version 2.0
      High Capacity: Yes
      Capacity: 7.2 GiB
      Bus Width: 1-bit
      Erase Group Size: 512 Bytes
      
    2. If SDCard is recognized correctly, please type fatls mmc 0, and check whether the following files are listed as below, if you can get the following files in your sdcard, please reformat your sdcard to Fat32 format, and copy the generated files in work/$SOC/boot/ to the root of sdcard, and re-insert the sdcard to SD slot, and retry from step 1.

      Note: Please make sure your SDCard is safely injected in your OS, and SDCard is formated to Fat32.

      => fatls mmc 0
          2594   kernel.dtb   # device tree binary file
           345   boot.scr     # boot script used by uboot, generated from ./conf/<SOC>/uboot.cmd
       3052821   uImage.lz4   # lz4 archived kernel image
       19155960  uInitrd.lz4  # lz4 archived rootfs image
      
       4 file(s), 0 dir(s)
      
    3. If the above steps are all correct, then you can run boot command to boot linux, or type commands located in ./conf/evalsoc/uboot.cmd for evalsoc.

  • The linux kernel and rootfs size is too big, is there any way to reduce it to speed up boot speed?

    If you are familiar with linux and buildroot configuration files, you can directly modify the configuration files located in conf folder.

    If you modified this files directly and want to take effects, you need to make clean first, and regenerate boot images.

    You can also try make buildroot_initramfs-menuconfig to get a terminal menuconfig to configure the buildroot packages.

    You can also try make linux-menuconfig to get a menuconfig to configure the linux kernel.

    You can also try make uboot-menuconfig to get a menuconfig to configure the uboot.

  • Other possible ways to reduce generated rootfs image size.

    If you are familiar with the generated rootfs files located in work/<SOC>/buildroot_initramfs_sysroot, you can manually remove the files you think it is not used, and type make cleanboot and then make bootimages, you can check the size information generated by the command.

  • The best way to learn this project is taking a look at the Makefile of this project to learn about what is really done in each make target.

  • Download work/$SOC/freeloader/freeloader.elf using Nuclei SDK.

    If you don't want to build the nuclei sdk, you can also download the boot images generated by github action.

    For example, for dev_nuclei_next branch, you can find the previous built artifacts in prebuilt artifacts.

    Then you can extra the downloaded bootimages_ux600.zip and extract freeloader/freeloader.elf to your disk, such as D:/freeloader.elf.

    Make sure you have followed steps to setup nuclei sdk development environment, then you can follow steps below to download this D:/freeloader.elf.

    see https://github.com/Nuclei-Software/nuclei-linux-sdk/wiki/Program-freeloader

Reference