Re: Mikrotik RouterBoard 333

[Grant Likely <grant.likely@secretlab.ca>]

On Tue, Jul 08, 2008 at 02:26:32PM +1000, David Gibson wrote:
> Does anyone on this list have contacts with the makers of this board?
> 
> Its firmware apparently provides a flattened device tree to the OS.
> And while this step towards world domination is flattering, it's an
> example of what I feared when people first got enthusiastic about the
> idea of including flattened device trees in firmwares.  The tree has
> not, AFAIK, been past this list, and has apparently not been reviewed
> by someone knowledgeable about device trees.  In short, it's crap, and
> now that it's embedded in the firware we can't really fix it.
> 
> So, to any embedded hardware/firmware vendors doing Linux ports out
> there.  I certainly encourage you to use flattened device trees, but
> can I please suggest you put the blob into your kernel image (in the
> bootwrapper strictly speaking), rather than into the flashed firmware.
> It's a lot easier to fix mistakes that way.
> 
> There are situations where it's nice to have the device tree in
> firmware, but there are many others where it buys little to nothing.
> People seem to be a bit overenthusaistic on the concept at the moment.

Total Ack!  Allow me second that opinion.

g.