Do make sense an u-boot installer?

[Alberto Planas <aplanas@suse.de>]

Hi,

lately I am working on a small script that try to unify and help the 
installation of u-boot (and the different assets) into SD cards.

As I am not knowledge about u-boot, I am starting small and with an use case 
that makes sense for my work. I want to discuss a bit if makes sense the idea, 
can be extended to cover other use cases and have a chance to be upstreamed 
inside u-boot/tools.

Before sending any patches, the current code is living here:

https://github.com/aplanas/u-boot/tree/dubi/tools/dubi

and the documentation is:

https://github.com/aplanas/u-boot/blob/dubi/tools/dubi/README

It is a POSIX Shell script with minimal dependencies, and fully tested via the 
script `test_dubi` from the same directory.

The referred use case is like this:

* In the openSUSE project we generate a bunch of images for multiple ARM / 
RISC-V devices, and all the logic for the installation is in a place that is 
hard to reuse. There are other teams that needs this installation logic for 
other projects.

* Could be handy a tool that can tool that can do something like:

  # List all the devices models that I can install
  dubi --list

  # Partition, format and install the bootloader in a local image file
  dubi --format --wipe -m rpi4 sdcard.img

  # ... or in a real device
  dubi --format --wipe -m rpi4 /dev/sdc

The models are stored in separated directories:

/usr/share/u-boot/
   rpi4/
      dubi.dsc
      uboot.bin
      boot.scr
   rpi3/
      ...

And a typical description file can be something like this:

  # SPDX-License-Identifier: GPL-2.0+

  MODEL=sunxi
  CPU=a31
  DESCRIPTION="Allwinner A31 (sun6i) SoC features a Quad-Core Cortex-A7 ARM 
Processor SoC, and a Power VR SGX544 (with 8 shader engines) GPU from 
Imagination Technologies."

  EFI=n
  LABEL=dos

  FILESYSTEM=ext4

  register partition size=16MiB type=c
  register partition size=500MiB type=swap
  register partition type=linux

  register bootloader u-boot-sunxi-with-spl.bin dst=8k
  register bootscr boot.scr partition=1 path=/


... or something like that.

The current script more or less to that (minus some missing calls to mkimage, 
WIP), and allows you to inject your own code for the different stages of the 
installation process, in case that the defaults get too short.

Is this a path for an installer that makes sense? If so, any thoughts about 
changes / improvements?

Thanks!

-- 
SUSE Software Solutions Germany GmbH
Maxfeldstr. 5
90409 Nuremberg
Germany

(HRB 36809, AG N?rnberg)
Managing Director: Felix Imend?rffer
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: signature.asc
Type: application/pgp-signature
Size: 488 bytes
Desc: This is a digitally signed message part.
URL: <https://lists.denx.de/pipermail/u-boot/attachments/20210413/214647e7/attachment.sig>