MEN A20

Is a VME board from the manufacturer Mikro Elektronik Nuernberg (http://www.men.de).

Hardware

Core2 Duo CPU, Up to 4GB Ram, Socket for Compact Flash Card

Two RJ45 Ports. The upper Port is a serial Port (FESA/MENA20SerialWiring) The lower is a gigbit ethernet.

The Reset switch is a lemo, without a fitting cable it is not possible to reset the board.

Initial Setup

Directly Connect via serial cable to a PC (factory serial configuration is 9600,8,n,1) . If you connect via terminal server and want to enter the bios it is a bit tricky to send a single delete key. Open telnet, Hit Ctrl-5 to enter telnet command mode and write "mode character". Afterwards delete will work, but remember that on most terminal emulators the delete key is not mapped to an ascii delete, try backspace instead.

Power on the Board. Hit Delete to enter bios. Which looks like this

                     Phoenix - AwardBIOS CMOS Setup Utility
+=======================================+======================================+
|                                       |                                      |
|  > Standard CMOS Features             |  > PC Health Status                  |
|                                       |                                      |
|  > Advanced BIOS Features             |  > Frequency/Voltage Control         |
|                                       |                                      |
|  > Advanced Chipset Features          |    Load Fail-Safe Defaults           |
|                                       |                                      |
|  > Integrated Peripherals             |    Load Optimized Defaults           |
|                                       |                                      |
|  > Special Features                   |    Set Password                      |
|                                       |                                      |
|  > Power Management Setup             |    Save & Exit Setup                 |
|                                       |                                      |
|  > PnP/PCI Configurations             |    Exit Without Saving               |
|                                       |                                      |
|---------------------------------------+--------------------------------------|
| Esc : Quit                              ^ V > <   : Select Item              |
| F10 : Save & Exit Setup                                                      |
|------------------------------------------------------------------------------|
|                                                                              |
|                        Time, Date, Hard Disk Type...                         |
|                                                                              |
+==============================================================================+

Ensure Boot Order is correct (Main->Advanced BIOS). First Boot device is the network (intel boot agent gigabit ethernet)

                     Phoenix - AwardBIOS CMOS Setup Utility
                             Advanced BIOS Features
+=====================================================+========================+
|  > CPU Feature               [Press Enter]          |        Item Help       |
|  > Hard Disk Boot Priority   [Press Enter]          |------------------------|
|    CPU L1 & L2 Cache         [Enabled]              | Menu Level   >         |
|    Quick Power On Self Test  [Enabled]              |                        |
|    First Boot Device         [IBA GE Slot 060]      |                        |
|    Second Boot Device        [Disabled]             |                        |
|    Third Boot Device         [Disabled]             |                        |
|    Boot Other Device         [Disabled]             |                        |
|    LAN-Boot ROM              [Endless]              |                        |
|    Boot Up NumLock Status    [Off]                  |                        |
|    Security Option           [Setup]                |                        |
|    APIC Mode                 [Enabled]              |                        |
|    MPS Version Control For OS[1.4]                  |                        |
|    OS Select For DRAM > 64MB [Non-OS2]              |                        |
|    HDD S.M.A.R.T. Capability [Disabled]             |                        |
|    Full Screen LOGO Show      Disabled              |                        |
|    Summary Screen Show       [Disabled]             |                        |
|                                                     |                        |
|                                                     |                        |
+=====================================================+========================+
  ^V><:Move  Enter:Select  +/-/PU/PD:Value  F10:Save  ESC:Exit  F1:General Help 
     F5: Previous Values    F6: Fail-Safe Defaults    F7: Optimized Defaults 

Configure the speed of the serial console to 115200 baud and keep it running after init. Otherwise the output of the network boot is not visible until the kernel is loaded.(Main -> Special Features)

                     Phoenix - AwardBIOS CMOS Setup Utility
                                Special Features  
+=====================================================+========================+
|    Console Redirect          [Enabled]              |        Item Help       |
|      Serial Port Mode        [115200,8,n,1]         |------------------------|
|      After Boot              [Enabled]              | Menu Level   >         |
|      Flow Control Signals    [Ignore]               |                        |
|                                                     | Enables control via    |
|    SMI Handler               [Enabled]              | terminal program on    |
|                                                     | serial port.           |
|                                                     |                        |
|                                                     |                        |
|                                                     |                        |
|                                                     |                        |
|                                                     |                        |
|                                                     |                        |
|                                                     |                        |
|                                                     |                        |
|                                                     |                        |
|                                                     |                        |
|                                                     |                        |
|                                                     |                        |
+=====================================================+========================+
  ^V><:Move  Enter:Select  +/-/PU/PD:Value  F10:Save  ESC:Exit  F1:General Help 
     F5: Previous Values    F6: Fail-Safe Defaults    F7: Optimized Defaults    

Reset board, Change your serial connection to the new speed.

Register Device in ACC network and setup PXE Boot.

VME bus Driver

The VME bus (tsi148) requires a driver that is not part of the vanilla kernel. It has been developed at cern and there have been efforts to integrate it into vanilla. Later kernels should be investigated once we use them at gsi. 2013-10: see http://cateee.net/lkddb/web-lkddb/VME_TSI148.html, might be in kernel starting 2.6.33 and out of staging starting 3.5

Make sure no crosscompiling is active. Get a tarball from the git repository, unpack it. Ignore all cern makefiles and compile it as an out of tree kernel module. Copy the resulting kernel module to the right place.

unset CROSS_COMPILE
wget http://repo.or.cz/w/tsi148vmebridge.git/snapshot/HEAD.tar.gz
tar zxvf HEAD.tar.gz
cd tsi148vmebridge/driver
make -C /common/usr/embedded/kernel/scu/2.6.33.6-rt26-scu02 M=$(pwd)

A copy of the code lives in https://www-acc.gsi.de/svn/bel/embedded/trunk/kernel/mena20/tsi148vmebridge

VME timing receiver

for the vme timing receiver, see https://www-acc.gsi.de/viewvc/view/fesa/framework/trunk/3rd_party/CERN-Timing/

-- ChristophHandel - 20 Nov 2012