Booting a Target Board

The host-target development model provides a powerful and flexible environment for developing your embedded Linux product. In this model, a host (server) system is configured to provide services such as TFTP to download the kernel, DHCP to automatically configure networking, and NFS to provide a root filesystem over the network. The target then requires minimal resources and configuration to start running Linux.

In the following descriptions, the host refers to a system running a standard desktop Linux distribution (Linux host). The target refers to the embedded development board on which you intend to boot the Timesys reference distribution.

Connecting the Target and Host

Connect the target to a serial port on the host so that console output can be seen. On a Linux host, minicom is typically used to connect to a target. Both host and target must share an Ethernet connection.

In general, the procedure for booting the Linux kernel on a target is as follows:

1. On the host: The Timesys distribution is installed on an IA-32 (x86) system that runs Linux, as described in Installing a Reference Linux Distribution from Timesys.
2. On the host: The TFTP server is configured to provide access to files (kernel and filesystem images) placed in the /tftpboot directory. This is the default directory used by most TFTP servers; setting up this directory and configuring the server are described in Configuring a TFTP Server for Linux.
3. The embedded kernel is copied to the /tftpboot directory to make it available for download to the target.
4. On the host: The DHCP/BOOTP server is configured to provide the following to the target:

• The target’s IP address
• The IP address of the NFS server which is exporting the RFS
• The path to the exported RFS on the server

Refer to Configuring a DHCP Server for Linux for more information.