On Thu, May 26, 2011 at 12:28 AM, Peter Teoh <htmldeveloper@xxxxxxxxx> wrote: > > > On Tue, May 24, 2011 at 6:15 PM, Ashok Babu <ashok3d@xxxxxxxxx> wrote: >> >> Hi All, >> I am no success in booting up the ARM1176 processor with the linux-2.6.32 >> kernel. >> While googling about the ARM Harvard architecture, I came to know that we >> have to flush/invalidate the D-Cache and I-Cache >> when using the self modifying codes. >> So here my questions/doubts : >> 1) Is'nt it the kernel itself is self modifying code with lots of function >> pointers ? >> If yes, how is synchronization b/w d-cache and i-cache handled in the >> kernel ? >> 2) Can this be the reason for the kernel not booting for me ? >> Because If i disable the I-Cache in the config, then the kernel boots >> up without any issues. >> Any pointers on this will be of great help. > > Here: > http://blogs.arm.com/software-enablement/141-caches-and-self-modifying-code/ Based on the URL above (where it described to disable I cache to execute self-modified codes), and your observation in (2), I guessed that the behavior is correct. During bootup, linux kernel actually unzip itself, and execute into the unzipped image. And so during this time, the I-cache have to be disabled in order to bring the instruction in from the external memory. _______________________________________________ Kernelnewbies mailing list Kernelnewbies@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx http://lists.kernelnewbies.org/mailman/listinfo/kernelnewbies
