From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 From: arnd@arndb.de (Arnd Bergmann) Date: Wed, 09 Apr 2014 11:38:45 +0200 Subject: Big endian working? In-Reply-To: <53450D3A.7030909@linaro.org> References: <20140408095446.0520dd28@skate> <53450D3A.7030909@linaro.org> Message-ID: <4880190.MJBhke5aDa@wuerfel> To: linux-arm-kernel@lists.infradead.org List-Id: linux-arm-kernel.lists.infradead.org On Wednesday 09 April 2014 12:04:58 Taras Kondratiuk wrote: > > > Maybe Nico's zImage change was under atags umbrella by mistake and > > it really addresses general zImage issue. In this case we need to add > > this commit to main line. However, I don't think we need to carry > > CPU_BE8_BOOT_LE option forward, why we just use > > CONFIG_CPU_BIG_ENDIAN instead. Note in all cases when BE > > image used loader is always in LE mode. Never seen case > > otherwise. > > That makes sense, but I'm concerned about BE32 systems. > Do they also have LE bootloaders? I don't remember kernel code which > switches to BE32. I'd think that switch is done by bootloader or > ROMcode. Or even BE hardwired in HW. So BE32 bootloader may expect to > see BE zImage header. > Maybe instead of CONFIG_CPU_BIG_ENDIAN use CONFIG_CPU_ENDIAN_BE8? Agreed. CONFIG_CPU_ENDIAN_BE32 basically means ixp4xx. Whatever those systems do today, I think we should better not change anything for them. If nobody has complained for the last 10 years, everyone who cares must have already found a working solution by now. For BE8, I think we should just try to do the right thing before we see mass deployments of broken boot loaders. Arnd