APEX is a very cool bootloader replacement for RedBoot. Replacing your boot loader is a highly technical feat. This voids our warrenty for sure. The procedures here describe building APEX, but not actually reflashing the bootloader. One should have JTAG on the slug because 1 mistake could create a brick with the only recovery by JTAG.

1. Version 1.2.16 or better. I used version 1.2.15 but it had a bug in it. You can get the download page from the discussion on APEX

1. I downloaded APEX

1. Version 1.2.16 or better. I used version 1.2.15 but it had a bug in it. You can get the download page from the discussion on APEX Wiki

1. I downloaded APEX

APEX is a very cool bootloader replacement for RedBoot. Replacing your boot loader is a highly technical feat. This voids our warrenty for sure. The procedures here describe building APEX, but not actually reflashing the bootloader. One should have JTAG on the slug because 1 mistake could create a brick with the only recovery by JTAG.

APEX is a very cool bootloader replacement for RedBoot. Replacing your boot loader is a highly technical feat. This voids our warrenty for sure. The procedures here describe building APEX, but not actually reflashing the bootloader. One should have JTAG on the slug because 1 mistake could create a brick with the only recovery by JTAG.

Alternate approach

eFfeM does not have serial but wanted to give APEX a go anyway. He did the following (on openslug):

1. set up a cross environment using the master makefile
2. cd openslug; source setup-env; cd openembedded/pacakges/apex
3. copy the existing bb file to the latest release (for me apex_1.3.14.bb)
4. edit this bb file to adapt the path for the cross compiler (I'm not knowledgeable enough to use the "right" compiler).
5. bb -b apex_1.3.14.bb (assuming that is your filename)
6. in openslug/tmp/work/apex-1.3.14-r0/apex-1.3.14/src/arch-arm/rom/apex.bin you can find your bin file (your path will be different if you are not using 1.3.14; size for my bin file is 32452 bytes)
7. setup a tftp server on your pc. Under Fedora core this can be done by yum install tftp-server
8. copy apex.bin to /tftpboot; make sure the dir and file are readable by tftp (I just did chmod 444 apex.bin)
9. telnet into redboot
10. in redboot type: ip_address -h 192.168.0.2 (or whatever the address of your development pc is)
11. in redboot type: load -b 0x1000000 -r -v -m tftp /apex.bin
12. in redboot type: g 0x01000000

Then I heard the slug reboot, the led turned red and that's it.
At this point I discovered that there is apparently no telnet access to apex, and as I do not have serial it is the end of the exercise for now. If someone at some point tells me how to write a conf file or something so that it can automatically build from hard disk, that would be great.

[beewoolie-2006.1.20] Recently, a user loaded APEX into SDRAM from

[beewoolie-2006.1.20] Recently, a user loaded APEX into SDRAM from Redboot and booted openslug-3.1. It usually booted OK, but the system crashed after some time. He found that when he flashed APEX as the system boot loader, the crashes went away. I've been using APEX for months now without issue.

1. untar and cd into the apex-1.3.12 directory. The exact name of the directory depends on the version you download.

1. If you've modified your slug with 64MiB of SDRAM, you'll want to change the memory setup. Under ARM Platform -> Size in bytes of each SDRAM banks change the 0x02000000 to 0x04000000.

The final product of the build, the file that you need, is in src/arch-arm/rom/apex.bin. This is the dumped binary.

1. untar and cd into the apex-1.3.10 directory. The exact name of the directory depends on the version you download.
2. make openslug_config -- This configures APEX for booting a slug with the Openslug firmware.
3. make xconfig -- This brings up the configuration tool

1. Save the configuration and quit the program
2. make

The final product of the build, the file that you need, is in src/arch-arm/rom/apex.bin. This is the dumped binary.

1. Running you slug on an UPS during flashing make tons of sense, otherwise a power glitch could cause a brick without JTAG.

APEX is a very cool bootloader replacement for RedBoot. Replacing your boot loader is a highly technical feat. This voids our warrenty for sure. The procedures here describe building APEX, but not actually reflashing the bootloader. One should have JTAG on the slug because 1 mistake could create a brick with the only recovery by JTAG.

1. Version 1.2.16 or better. I used version 1.2.15 but it had a bug in it. You can get the download page from the discussion on APEX Wiki

1. I downloaded APEX

1. (Optional for 64MB Fatslugs) Under ARM Platform -> Size in bytes of each SDRAM banks change the 0x02000000 to 0x04000000

APEX is a very cool bootloader replacement for Redboot. Replacing your boot loader is a highly technical feat. This voids our warrenty for sure. The procedures here describe building APEX, but not actually reflashing the bootloader. One should have JTAG on the slug because 1 mistake could create a brick with the only recovery by JTAG.

Things to you'll need

1. An ARMv5b compiler. I'm running the latest ARMv5b from crosstool 0.35. One could probably used the compilers built by OE when building OpenSlug or Unslung, but I haven't tried that yet.
2. An fairly recent OpenSlug build is important for testing.
3. Version 1.2.16 or better. I used version 1.2.15 but it had a bug in it. You can get the download page from the discussion on http://wiki.buici.com/twiki/bin/view/Main/ApexBootloader#IXP42x_and_the_Linksys_NSLU2_aka
4. Running you slug on an UPS make tons of sense, otherwise a power glitch could cause a brick without JTAG.

What I did

1. I downloaded http://wiki.buici.com/bin/view/Main/ApexBootloader?
2. untar and cd into the apex-1.2.15 directory in my case
3. make nslu2_config -- This builds a default config for the NSLU2
4. make xconfig -- This brings up a config tool
5. Under ARM Platform -> General Setup -> Cross Compiler Prefix -> change the path to point to you local armv5b compiler tools
6. (Optional for 64MB Fatslugs)Under ARM Platform -> Size in bytes of each SDRAM banks change the 0x02000000 to 0x04000000
7. Under Generic Driver enable JFFS2
8. Under Generic Drivers -> JFFS2 Driver region change cf to nor:0x180000+0x660000
9. (Optional for 1.2.15) Under Generic Drivers enable ext2 (this is should be fixed in 1.2.16)
10. Under Platform Setup uncheck ramdisk option (none is needed for Openslug)
11. edit the src/mach-ixp42x/env.c change the lines to look like this
    // " root=/dev/ram0"
    // " root=/dev/slug"
    " root=/dev/mtdblock4 rw"
    " rootfstype=jffs2"\\

You've got a freshly minted APEX boot loader.

After some more airtime, I'll add the final steps for running APEX. Otherwise, stop by #openslug or #openjtag for more information. See me [g2] or beewoolie.

APEX? is a very cool bootloader replacement for Redboot. Replacing your boot loader is a highly technical feat. This voids our warrenty for sure. The procedures here describe building APEX?, but not actually reflashing the bootloader. One should have JTAG on the slug because 1 mistake could create a brick with the only recovery by JTAG.

1. I downloaded APEX?

You've got a freshly minted APEX? boot loader.

After some more airtime, I'll add the final steps for runnig APEX?. Otherwise, stop by #openslug or #openjtag for more information. See me [g2] or beewoolie.

APEX is a very cool bootloader replacement for Redboot. Replacing your boot loader is a highly technical feat. This voids our warrenty for sure. The procedures here describe building APEX, but not actually reflashing the bootloader. One should have JTAG on the slug because 1 mistake could create a brick with the only recovery by JTAG.

1. Running you slug on an UPS make tons of sense, otherwise a power glitch could cause a brick without JTAG.

1. untar and cd into the apex-1.2.15 directory in my case

1. finally save the configuration file, quit the utility

After some more airtime, I'll add the final steps for runnig APEX. Otherwise, stop by #openslug or #openjtag for more information. See me [g2] or beewoolie.

APEX is a very cool bootloader replacement for Redboot. Replacing your boot loader is a highly technical feat. This voids our warrenty for sure. The procedures here describe building APEX, but not actually reflashing the bootloader. One should have JTAG on the slug be because 1 mistake could create a brick with the only recovery by JTAG.

N.B. This is highly experimental software -- USE AT YOUR OWN RISK

Things to you'll need

1. An armv5b compiler. I'm running the latest armv5b from crosstool 0.35. One could probably used the compilers built by OE when building Openslug or Unslung, but I haven't tried that yet.
2. An fairly recent Openslug build is important for testing.
3. Version 1.2.16 or better. I used version 1.2.15 but it had a bug in it. You can get the download page from the discussion on http://wiki.buici.com/twiki/bin/view/Main/ApexBootloader#IXP42x_and_the_Linksys_NSLU2_aka

What I did

1. I downloaded APEX
2. untar can cd into the apex-1.2.15 directory in my case
3. make nslu2_config -- This builds a default config for the NSLU2
4. make xconfig -- This brings up a config tool
5. Under ARM Platform -> General Setup -> Cross Compiler Prefix -> change the path to point to you local armv5b compiler tools
6. (Optional for 64MB Fatslugs)Under ARM Platform -> Size in bytes of each SDRAM banks change the 0x02000000 to 0x04000000
7. Under Generic Driver enable JFFS2
8. Under Generic Drivers -> JFFS2 Driver region change cf to nor:0x180000+0x660000
9. (Optional for 1.2.15) Under Generic Drivers enable ext2 (this is should be fixed in 1.2.16)
10. Under Platform Setup uncheck ramdisk option (none is needed for Openslug)
11. edit the src/mach-ixp42x/env.c change the lines to look like this

  //                 " root=/dev/ram0"
  //                 " root=/dev/slug"
                     " root=/dev/mtdblock4 rw "
                     " rootfstype=jffs2"
                     " init=/linuxrc"

1. make

You've got a freshly minted APEX boot loader.

After some more airtime I'll add the final steps for runnig APEX. Otherwise, stop by #openslug or #openjtag for more information. See me [g2] or beewoolie.