[U-Boot] ARM64 Allwinner Binary Size

Andre Przywara
2017-12-19T13:38:59Z

Hi Maxime,

thanks for having a look!

On 19/12/17 13:12, Maxime Ripard wrote:
> On Tue, Dec 05, 2017 at 10:28:20AM +0000, Andre Przywara wrote:
>> So even though the actual u-boot.bin for 64-bit boards is still somewhat
>> below the limit (~480KB), adding the ATF image (~32KB) pushes it over
>> the edge. So since v2017.11 u-boot.itb is already too big for the
>> traditional MMC env location.
>
> So I've had a quick look about what could go possibly go away in our
> current armv8 config (using the pine64+ defconfig). Let me know if
> some are actually vitals:
>
> - FIT_ENABLE_SHA256_SUPPORT
> - CONSOLE_MUX
> - CMD_CRC32
> - CMD_LZMADEC
> - CMD_UNZIP
> - CMD_LOADB
> - CMD_LOADS
> - CMD_MISC (actually implementing the command sleep)
> - ISO_PARTITION (yes. For CDROMs.)

As Alex mentioned, this is needed for some installer images, which come
as ISOs. So if possible, we should keep this in.

> - VIDEO_BPP8, VIDEO_BPP16
> - VIDEO_ANSI
> - SHA256
> - LZMA

From just looking at the names I am fine with the rest gone. But let me
test tonight if there are any side effects.

Some of them seem useful, but I would leave enabling them to the actual
users. If someone needs it, they can enable them and loose the raw MMC
environment. I think this is a fair trade-off.

> Removing those options make the u-boot.itb binary size going from
> 516kB to 478kB, making it functional again *and* allowing us to enable
> the DT overlays that seem way more important than any feature
> mentionned above (and bumps the size to 483kB).

How important is the raw MMC environment for the ARM64 boards, actually?
Most of the rationale for the 32-bit side seemed to apply to legacy use
cases only. Do we have reports/complaints from 64-bit users?

Cheers,
Andre.