[U-Boot] /chosen node not overwritten by bootm

[Jerry Van Baren <gerald.vanbaren@ge.com>]

Stefan Roese wrote:
> Hi Jerry,
> 
> Again I (and Wolfgang) stumbled about the problem, that the /chosen node is 
> not overwritten by the bootm command when it already exists. This is really 
> annoying, since we either:
> 
> a) Have to remove the chosen node from the dts files (which is not so easy
>    if we try to stay in sync with the kernel.org version)
> 
> or
> 
> b) Have to manually use the U-Boot "fdt" commands to overwrite the chosen node
> 
> I can't remember why this current behavior is implemented this way. Jerry, 
> can't we just overwrite this node even if it already exists? What would we 
> loose by doing this?
> 
> Thanks.
> 
> Best regards,
> Stefan

Hi Stefan,

The behavior was to mimic the behavior of the non-LIBFDT original 
implementation (and because we thought it was a good idea at the time). 
  We originally assumed that the .dts file writer had more/better 
knowledge of the system than we did (which was true at the time).  This 
was aggravated by the conundrum that the original FDT support didn't do 
a good job of generating the /chosen properties (some were, some 
weren't), so the .dts writers /had to/ pre-init some /chosen values. 
The /aliases node also helped - configuration choices that use to be 
implicit in the .dts /chosen node are now in /aliases (major improvement!).

I thought we turned on the "force" flag so that the /chosen properties 
would be overwritten, apparently I'm mistaken.

I'm fine with overwriting the /chosen node and properties.  Generate a 
patch and I'll be happy to ack it.

(Note to self: maybe it is time to retire the "force" flag - it always 
made me uncomfortable and is confusing.  Is there anything left that we 
*don't* want to force?)

Best regards,
gvb