Re: [Qemu-devel] [PATCH v2] arm: add device tree support

[Anthony Liguori <anthony@codemonkey.ws>]

On 01/31/2012 07:35 PM, Paul Brook wrote:
>> We could also just change machine->init() and pass the dtb in there. In a
>> QOM world these would become machine device properties anyways.
>>
>>      machine->init(ram_size, boot_devices,
>>                    kernel_filename, kernel_cmdline, initrd_filename,
>> cpu_model);
>>
>> Essentially we shouldn't treat -dtb any different than -kernel or -initrd.
>> It's also useful for more than ARM, namely embedded ppc systems. But I can
>> easily post a follow-up patch for those.
>
> Changing machine->init means you have to touch every single board file, and
> clone the exact same code for every machine that uses arm_boot.c.  All of
> which will be rewritten in the near future.
>
> machine->init is a particularly suckiy interface to start with, we want to be
> using it less, not more.  It's not like we're going support multiple machine
> instanced.  At least not before machine->init is removed altogether.

The right solution to this problem is to make an arm-kernel-loader device that 
has a dtb property.

It's a very small amount of code and fits with our longer term strategy of 
killing off machine->init.

Regards,

Anthony Liguori

>
> Paul
>