FAQ XNAND

Question: How do I update or install the XNAND image onto my XNAND-enabled SBC?

Answer:

Note: This is a legacy answer kept for archival purposes. For current information on the XNAND implementation specific to your TS board, please see the wiki page associated with the product you have.

This section provides the necessary steps for updating the XNAND Drive of an XNAND enabled single board computer. Keep in mind that this section will refer to a generic xnandimg.dd.gz file. Use the appropriate image name for your update by referring to the images available on the FTP server. For example, the June 1st, 2010 image for the TS-75XX/TS-4500 is specifically named "xnandimg-jun012010.dd.gz" and can be found on the FTP server here: https://files.embeddedTS.com/ts-arm-sbc/ts-7500-linux/binaries/ts-images/previous_releases/xnandimg-jun012010.dd.bz2

First, the appropriate xnandimg.dd.gz file must be downloaded and copied to an accessible location that the SBC can access while booted to the initial ramdisk (initrd/fastboot) off the offboard SPI flash, XNAND drive, or USB drive.* Possible locations are USB thumb drive, microSD card, or network server (NFS, FTP, TFTP, SSH). Whichever the case may be, use the following command to write the appropriate xnandimg.dd.gz file to the XNAND drive:

  gunzip -c /path/to/xnandimg.dd.gz | nandctl -z 131072 -XW 2048 -i -

• If you do not have an accessible location for the image readily available, you can use a cute series of pipes to write the image to the XNAND drive directly from Technologic Systems FTP server to the XNAND drive without using USB flash drive or other storage medium with the following commands. Keep in mind that if your network connection should drop or there are any download problems, you risk being left with a corrupted XNAND image. Don't restart the SBC unless you feel confident that it copied okay!

  1.) Get IP Address:
     * udhcpc

  2.) Specify FTP_URL variable with actual path and name of the xnandimg file:
     * FTP_URL=<Insert Link Here>
      -- NOTE:  For example, for the June 1st, 2010 XNAND image release use the following command:
        * FTP_URL=https://files.embeddedTS.com/ts-arm-sbc/ts-7500-linux/binaries/ts-images/previous_releases/xnandimg-jun012010.dd.bz2
     
  3.) Download file from ftp, pipe to gunzip, pipe to nandctl (single, one-liner command):
     * wget $FTP_URL -O - | gunzip - | nandctl -z 131072 -XW 2048 -i -