/usr/sbin/debootstrap -arch sparc stable /mnt/debinst

Fig. 2. SoC Boot Up

Another important ability of this small piece of software (boot loader) is to pass arguments to the Linux kernel, which avoids the need to use complex bootloaders such as LILO or GRUB, which are necessary in workstations.

The configuration of the Linux kernel and boot loader and the preparation of the romfs unit are performed by a few scripts. After this process, we proceed to compile the software system and so a set of software images (object files) are obtained.

With this set of object files generated we chose an image prepared for flash memory that contains the boot loader with the Linux kernel and the small romfs file system. Then we can program the flash memory using the Debug-Support Unit (DSU) within LEON3 core by interfacing with a JTAG or Ethernet connection, using the debugging application grmon from Gaisler Research.

Once the process is completed we have a functional Linux kernel with very basic core lightweight applications on top of our SoC platform. The complete programming and booting process of the SoC platform is shown in figure 2.
