• AMDAlchemyPort

1. Status of the AMD Alchemy port of OpenWrt

1.1. What is this AMD Alchemy stuff?

AMD Alchemy is a processor developped by AMD focused on small Web/Network applicances.

See the TableOfHardware for supported AMD Alchemy routers.

See OpenWrtDocs/InstallingAlchemy if you are brave enough to test it.

1.2. Finished tasks

The support for AMD Alchemy is completed :

• The images are working and you can do some more testing

1.3. TODO

1.4. Firmware/Bootloader

The bootloader is Yamon, and supports TFTP booting. The firmware can only be booted when it is in SREC format. OpenWrt images are in the right format already.

2. How to help

Since the board is really well supported with both Linux 2.4 and 2.6, you can test the firmware built with kamikaze and report any problems you may encounter.

2.1. Flashing images

The YAMON bootloader allows you to either run a kernel in RAM (for testing purpose), or a filesystem in RAM, or both, but you can also write these two components on the flash.

2.1.1. Loading a kernel in RAM

Once you have YAMON access just :

load <IP address>/<kernel filename>

Then modify the start variable in order to load the kernel in ram and not on the flash, for that do :

go . rootfstype=<your fs type> init=<your init script>

2.1.2. Loading filesystem from RAM

Almost same thing as before, except that you are likely to use either the $start variable, or the go command after having loaded your filesystem via load

2.1.3. Writing combined images to Flash

First you need to erase the two sections of the flash which contain filesystem and kernel :

erase 0xbfd00000 0xf0000
erase -s
load <your combined image>

This will first erase the kernel, then filesystem, the box will reboot, and next time you load a combined image, it will be written to the flash.

2.1.4. Writing kernel to Flash

Almos the same idea as before :

erase 0xbfd00000 0xf0000
load <your kernel>

Next time you load a kernel via TFTP it will be written in the flash

2.1.5. Writing filesystem to Flash

Once again, almost the same thing :

erase -s system
load <your system>

3. Other stuff

3.1. Model-specific information

Mode-specific information can be found on that model's page. See CategoryAlchemyDevice.

3.2. JTAG

The JTAG is an EJTAG and can be easily accessible :

The 12-pin connectors superposes a serial console, and a JTAG interface :

Here is the pinout :

Standard EJTAG interface, as the one you can build for a WRT54G will work. Same thing for the serial port.

Happy debugging !

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CategoryOpenWrtPort