From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Return-Path: Received: from yw-out-2324.google.com (yw-out-2324.google.com [74.125.46.31]) by ozlabs.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id AC9E0DDF31 for ; Wed, 9 Jul 2008 14:09:36 +1000 (EST) Received: by yw-out-2324.google.com with SMTP id 5so1279266ywh.39 for ; Tue, 08 Jul 2008 21:09:28 -0700 (PDT) Date: Tue, 8 Jul 2008 22:09:25 -0600 From: Grant Likely To: linuxppc-dev@ozlabs.org Subject: Re: Mikrotik RouterBoard 333 Message-ID: <20080709040925.GA13810@secretlab.ca> References: <20080708042631.GB7328@yookeroo.seuss> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii In-Reply-To: <20080708042631.GB7328@yookeroo.seuss> Sender: Grant Likely List-Id: Linux on PowerPC Developers Mail List List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , 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.