[U-Boot] [PATCH v2 3/3] image: Allow images to indicate they're loadable at any address

Wolfgang Denk
2011-11-05T22:20:12Z

Dear Stephen Warren,

In message <1320164902-24190-3-git-send-email-swarren@nvidia.com> you wrote:
> The legacy uImage format includes an absolute load and entry-
> point address. When presented with a uImage in memory that
> isn't loaded at the address in the image's load address,
> U-Boot will relocate the image to its address in the header.
>
> Some payloads can actually be loaded and used at any arbitrary
> address. An example is an ARM Linux kernel zImage file. This
> is useful when sharing a single zImage across multiple boards
> with different memory layouts, or U-Boot builds with different
> ${load_addr} since sharing a single absolute load address may
> not be possible.
>
> With this config option enabled, an image header may contain a
> load address of -1/0xffffffff. This indicates the image can
> operate at any load address, and U-Boot will avoid automtically
> copying it anywhere. In this case, the entry-point field is
> specified relative to the start of the image payload.

Please don't invent a new solution. This has been discussed before,
and the agreement was to introduce a new image format where the load
and entry point addresses are not absolute, but interpreted as offsets
relative to the respectice start of system RAM address.

Your own IH_TYPE_*_REL patches are queued and will be merged soon.

I do not see the need for yet another implementation for the very same
thing, so NAK.

Best regards,

Wolfgang Denk

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