Setting up Linux on the development board like SocKit with a double-core ARM Cortex A9 is not rocket science. A manufacturer of the board supports the ready-to-use image, appropriate for installing on SD card or another media. But what if you are craving to touch bare metal, approaching a neck-breaking speed of code not restrained by an OS core? Well, it is possible, but not so easy and obvious. In this short essay, I'll give you step-by-step instruction, how to build and run you first bare-metal application on Cyclone V SoC, that uses ARM Cortex A9 core of the HPS subsystem of the SoC.
You need to have the development board with Intel (Altera) Cyclone V SoC. I used SoCKit board: