From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 To: Dan Malek Cc: linuxppc-embedded@lists.linuxppc.org Subject: Re: 8260 console problems From: Wolfgang Denk Mime-version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 In-reply-to: Your message of "Thu, 22 Feb 2001 18:51:20 EST." <3A95A5F8.DF6FB60B@mvista.com> Date: Fri, 23 Feb 2001 02:18:16 +0100 Message-Id: <20010223011822.EBA86287E8@denx.denx.de> Sender: owner-linuxppc-embedded@lists.linuxppc.org List-Id: In message <3A95A5F8.DF6FB60B@mvista.com> you wrote: > > The code in the mbxboot directory is also used by (many) people > that flash the kernel and initrd into rom. One of the nice things > about this code is you can boot an image over a network for testing, > and then flash the identical compressed bits when you get it working. Yes, that's what we do with PPCBoot, too. You don't need the mbxboot stuff for this. > > Is there a good, urgent reason to _change_ the current state? > > When I get a chance to step back and take a breath from the recent > set of merges (yours are in the pipeline now :-), the bd_info stuff > is going to disappear and follow the new boot record method used by > other PPC booters. That is the first major step to removing the whole > variety of different boot loaders. Seems I'm missing a bit of information here. Which "new boot record method" are you talking about? Where are things like this discussed? Is there any documentation available? > > Right now the "kernel interface" is pretty well defined (starts at > > address 0, r3: ptr to bd_info, r4: start of initrd or 0, r5: end of > > initrd, r6: start of command line, r7: end of command line). What are > > you going to change, and why? > > No one but 8xx uses that calling convention anymore. To standardize Really? Isn't this still in use on 4xx, 8xx, and PREP? Ummm... I'm talking about 2.4.0 here; has this been changed sice? > new boot record method. Regardless of how a board and boot rom store > and provide information, the code in the "boot" directory collects > this into a standard format and presents it to the kernel. That's OK for all those boards that come with any usable firmware; some others will be using PPCBoot, and it is our intention that you don't need any additional "glue" layer when booting with PPCBoot. Wolfgang Denk -- Software Engineering: Embedded and Realtime Systems, Embedded Linux Phone: (+49)-8142-4596-87 Fax: (+49)-8142-4596-88 Email: wd@denx.de Remember that Beethoven wrote his first symphony in C ... ** Sent via the linuxppc-embedded mail list. See http://lists.linuxppc.org/