Re: [RFC] Kbuild support for ARM FIT images

Pavel Machek
2013-03-18T17:49:44Z

On Mon 2013-03-18 16:44:26, Russell King - ARM Linux wrote:
> On Mon, Mar 18, 2013 at 05:36:53PM +0100, Pavel Machek wrote:
> > On Fri 2013-02-22 08:00:44, Olof Johansson wrote:
> > > On Wed, Feb 20, 2013 at 07:37:10PM -0600, Joel A Fernandes wrote:
> > > > Any comments on this approach? Is it better to merge mkfitsrc.sh with
> > > > mkuboot.sh?
> > >
> > > I know this was discussed quite extensively yesterday, but here is my take on
> > > it:
> > >
> > > Given the recent complications from multiplatform, we really saw a strong
> > > reason to _not_ do the final boot wrapping in the kernel build system.
> > > Produce the zImage and the DTB files, and have a surrounding script that
> > > bundles the two in a format that your particular device needs.
> > >
> > > Most distros have scripts to handle the "make install" step of a kernel build.
> > > That's where this belongs, not in the actual build step.
> >
> > Not sure I agree here:
> >
> > 1) zImage was designed to boot from floppy, without any kind of
> > bootloader on i386
>
> zImage on x86 != zImage on ARM.
>
> They only share the fact that they're both compressed and self-extracting.
>
> ARM has never supported any kind of floppy based boot - mainly because
> floppies have never been "executable" like they are on x86; all that
> previous boot loaders ever did was load the kernel into RAM using
> some

Yes, I know. That's why I said "on i386".

What I wanted to say is that kernel build traditionaly produced
something useful, something bootloader can actually boot. Currently,
make uImage produces u-boot image. Please keep that capability.
Pavel
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