How to convert a zImage into uImage for booting with u-boot

Question

I have a zImage that I want to boot using u-boot.

I think zImage is not understood by u-boot,as I am getting the following error after uboot executes:

Wrong Image Format for bootm command
ERROR: can't get kernel image!
U-Boot-cortex>

Is there any tool that converts a zImage into uImage which u-boot understands?

Answer 1

From a page on U-Boot images here, the command you're looking for is :

mkimage -A arm -O linux -T kernel -C none -a 0x80008000 -e 0x80008000 -n "Linux kernel" -d arch/arm/boot/zImage uImage

The mkimage utility comes with the u-boot-tools package in Ubuntu (if that's what you're using), and it can be installed with the command sudo apt-get install u-boot-tools

Answer 2

In recent versions of U-Boot, you can simply enable the bootz command, which boots a raw zImage.

And in order to enable the bootz command, you need to add:

#define CONFIG_CMD_BOOTZ 

in your board config file (include/configs/)

Source http://u-boot.10912.n7.nabble.com/Booting-zImage-from-UBOOT-td150140.html