[U-Boot-Users] Device tree home

[Jerry Van Baren <gerald.vanbaren@smiths-aerospace.com>]

Kim Phillips wrote:
> 3. does a subsystem maintainer get leverage into changes made in the
> higher level components of Das U-Boot?  E.g., I'm still a firm
> believer that the device tree source should live in the bootloader ;)
> 
> Kim

Hi Kim,

Back to the fdt/of methodology (I started a new thread since it is kind 
of a new topic)... I have a hot project that I have not quite gotten to 
yet to integrate the fdt more tightly into u-boot rather than it being 
some magic wedged into bootm.

The ultimate goal (for me) is to have an option where the u-boot env 
gets stored in a fdt rather than the current env so that the fdt really 
is native to u-boot.  The goal would be that all the current env 
commands would Just Work[tm].

For compatibility with architectures that don't use the fdt (i.e. 
everything other than PPC :-), the current env would have to be 
supported and and mongrel system of both traditional env and fdt would 
need to be supported as well for backwards compatibility.

I've been seriously looking at David Gibson's libfdt library which looks 
a lot more straightforward than the kernel's implementation.  (I've 
CC:ed him on this email since I don't believe he is subscribed to the 
u-boot list.)  For more information, see:
<http://www.archivesat.com/Linux_on_PowerPC_Developers/thread2163413.htm>

I have not thought of any reason this won't work.  I have not started 
implementing it yet, but it is #1 in my job jar. (That would be more 
meaningful if there weren't 20 other things also at #1. :-/)

Best regards,
gvb