how to generate flashable eMMC image with fiasco-gen and flasher?

[Bernard]

Can anybody help me explain how to use the fiasco-gen tool from the sdk-fiasco-gen_2.8.2.0.1+0m5_i386.deb package to generate a flashable EMMC image ?

Fiasco-gen is part of a SDK tool package and can be used to make fiasco images.
http://maemo.org/packages/view/sdk-fiasco-gen/
http://repository.maemo.org/pool/mae...1+0m5_i386.deb

I have used it successfully to make a flashable image for the NAND memory. By combining a rootfs image and a kernel image in one fiasco image with:

fiasco-gen -g -k kernelImage -r rootfsImage -o myOwnFiasco.bin

I can flash this image to the N900 with:

flasher-3.5 -F myOwnFiasco.bin -f -R

And that works perfectly

But now I want to make a fiasco image for the eMMC memory.

fiasco-gen -g -m mmcImage -o myMmcFiasco.bin

But flashing that image does not work. The flasher exits with "SU_GET_UPDATE_STATUS_REQ terminated with error code 2."

I think the problem is with the way I use the fiasco-gen tool. It has a number of extra options that I don't know how to use:

  -m, --mmc=ARG            Location of MMC image
      --mmc-append=ARG     MMC raw image to append
      --mmc-partition=ARG  Partition for the MMC raw image (in layout)
      --initrd=ARG         Location of intird image

The mmc image is correct as it is just the mmc image that I extracted from the current VANILLA EMMC fiasco image with the flasher tool:

flasher-3.5 -F RX-51_2009SE_10.2010.13-2.VANILLA_PR_EMMC_MR0_ARM.bin -u

When comparing the new fiasco image with the original using hexedit you can clearly see that i am missing partition table information. As my file does not have stuff like:

{...name = "internal";...partition {....fs_type = "vfat";....prefix = "mydocs";....no_create = true;...}...partition {....size = 2048;....fs_type = "ext3";....prefix = "home";...}...partition{....size = 768;....fs_type = "swap";...}..}

at the beginning of the file.

Can anybody help me figure out how to use this tool? I have not found any documentation for this (non-free Nokia) tool other than the help text.

[MohammadAG]

You'll need to pass a layout file

mmc {
	name = "internal";
	partition {
		fs_type = "vfat";
		prefix = "mydocs";
		no_create = true;
	}
	partition {
		size = 2048;
		fs_type = "ext3";
		prefix = "home";
	}
	partition {
		size = 768;
		fs_type = "swap";
	}
}

Put that in some text file (e.g layoutFile) and use

fiasco-gen -l layoutFile -m mmcImage -o myMmcFiasco.bin

[Bernard]

hmm, I get an error:

Layout should belong to image

Why does it think it doesn't ?

[MohammadAG]

No idea, I've only tested this with the same "mmc" file from the VANILLA file and it worked.
How are you creating that file?

[Bernard]

flasher-3.5 -F RX-51_2009SE_10.2010.13-2.VANILLA_PR_EMMC_MR0_ARM.bin -u

and after that I use the layoutFile you posted:

fiasco-gen -l layoutFile -m mmc -o myMmcFiasco.bin

And that gives:

fiasco-gen v2.8.2 (Jan 28 2011)

Layout should belong to image

[MohammadAG]

[sbox-FREMANTLE_ARMEL: ~/custom] > fiasco-gen --mmc=mmc --layout=layout -o test.fiasco -g
fiasco-gen v2.8.2 (Jan 26 2010)

Adding mmc         : mmc (255947 kB)

That seems to work fine (your line also gave me the same error for some reason)

[Bernard]

It seems you first need to specify the mmc, than the layout file

fiasco-gen -g -m mmc  -l layoutFile -o myMmcFiasco.bin

Thank you very much!

[Boemien]

Hi, I would like to know if your generated eMMc image contains some tweaks or some new scripts which do not exist in the original ? The main question is is it possible to tweak the SDK and produce a modified image file which will be flashable withe nookia N900??
I'm a BIG noob in linux system but I have a few Ideas. Thanks in advance.

[Bernard]

my fiasco image for NAND is modified, because it is based on a backupmenu rootfs and a different kernel image.

But you also need the files in the /home folder on the ext3 partition on eMMC to make a complete backup. You can just boot the backup menu and restore the optfs backup, but I would much rather like to alter the eMMC flashable image.
But I haven't figured out how to build my own mmc image.
You can easily mount the first vFAT partition using mount:

sudo mount -o loop mmc mountFolder

But when you modify the files the maximum size cannot increase, and if you want to modify the ext3 partition, you would need to find the offset (and fdisk -ul does not seem to work to find that out), adn I haven't yet.

[rlinfati]

To add 1 giga do:

dd if=/dev/zero bs=1M count=1024 >> mmc

Note:
the "maximal" size of the file mmc is ~4.1G.... when is expanded ?