yay, i managed to boot with:

ITEM_NAME="Mer - Nemo Mobile"
ITEM_ID="nemo"
ITEM_CMDLINE="root=/dev/mmcblk0p1 rootwait rw console=ttyO2,115200n8 console=tty0 omapfb.vram=0:2M,1:2M,2:2M mtdoops.mtddev=2"
ITEM_DEVICE="${EXT_CARD}p3"
ITEM_KERNEL="uImage"
ITEM_FSTYPE="fat"
ITEM_USEATAG="1"

I got some mmcblk0 errors during boot but it managed to get into nemo. But then after a while it crashed by spraying the console with something like:

mmcblk0: error -110 sending read/write comand
mmcblk0: error -110 sending status comand

But that might just be due to my sd card being damaged or something?

Anyway, thanks for all the help!

ha, exact same behavior here. And after that crash Nemo doesn't boot anymore.

It complaints about locked x server files etc. Ends up in an endless loop.
I'm now rewriting my SD card, thinking I was sold a bad card.
It seems it's not the case. There must still be other things to tweak.

PS I'm having a Samsung Class 10 8 GB card, from a reputable seller at Amazon. I'm expecting also a Samsung Class 6 8GB card, for actual runtime speed comparison testing.

I get exactly the same errors with the bootmenu entry posted by plipp.

My card is a 8GB class 10 from samsung, I don't think it's an issue with a bad card if we all got the same errors.

Maybe some of the options in the CMDLINE are wrong or it still needs more options ...

The bootmenu items should be:

For SD generated by Nemo image:
For booting from a generic partition (i.e. from eMMC's partition):
Remember to copy zImage (not uImage) kernel to /boot and edit "mmcblk1p5" to point to your partition (SD is mmcblk0 and eMMC is mmcblk1).

Or subsystems (SD / eMMC) are not initialized by this u-boot as MeeGo/Nemo wants

mmmm, are you sure about that external SD card bootmenu item ?
When trying that I'm getting in U-Boot :
And I'm being dropped in the U-Boot console.

The 3rd partition (the FAT one) on the SD card does not contain a boot.scr file, only a kernel config text file, a kernel memory map text file, the vmlinuz version of the kernel and the uImage version of the kernel. No boot.scr file.

What are we doing wrong ? Does this work on your N900 ?

PS. In the mean time received I my Samsung 8GB Class 6 SD card and I used that one as the target for the image, writing was fine. As opposed to the class 10 SD card, which seems like f*cked up. rewriting the image took forever and the card reader activity light was very strange behaving. I'll try to recover that one later.

I have edited post, please retry

I tried again, with the removal of the SCRIPT line. Now I'm having the same result as with the CMDLINE='root= ..." version we were trying before. Getting loads of mmblck1: error -110 lines in succession reading/receiving for minutes (already 8 minutes ...) in a row. This is now the 2nd card I'm putting in giving this issue. But this one hasn't even fallen through yet to Nemo, as the first one finally did.

I did see something on the Nemo install wiki :
But I have a hard time believing 2 cards, different vendors, both Samsung 8 GB, one class 10, one class 6, are both defect.

So there must be something else ...

UPDATE: now I'm having the thousands of scrolling errors on mmcblk0. Same error -110 sending/receiving ...

Same problem with dmesg error messages. Similar errors I was getting in U-boot (when I tried to activate mmc) and in U-Boot was problem that mmc/sd card was not activated with twl4030 regulator.

So I think this is problem in Nemo kernel. (U-Boot maybe does not set same sd state as NOLO, but kernel should not depends on bad bootloader).

Can somebody ask maintainers/developers of Nemo kernel about this problem? At least default Nokia Maemo 2.6.28 has no problems with eMMC/SD memory.

I've found this info on the error, talking about a kernel bug in the same kernel version as Nemo is using, also on armel architecture


http://groups.google.com/group/beagleboard/browse_thread/thread/87f191353f55ecc2?pli=1

Smoking gun ???

Something for Carsten and his team I guess.