[U-Boot-Users] RFC: New U-boot image format

Timur Tabi
2007-12-18T15:17:27Z

Marian Balakowicz wrote:
> Hello,
>
> New format for U-boot images has been on the list few times already.
> There were different ideas and features discussed but no final
> conclusion has been made.

I have a request for a new feature. I think we need image-format plug-ins.
That is, we need a way for a plug-in to register itself with the main format
processing code. When the processing code sees a blob that it doesn't
understand, it calls the plug-in to handle it.

This would be a handy way to handle stuff like the QE firmware binary blob
format (see the thread titled "[PATCH] 85xx: add ability to upload QE
firmware"). The format of the QE firmware blob has already been decided, so all
I would need from the multi-image format is:

1) A way to package my blob.
2) A way to pass the address of the blob to the QE code

For option #2, setting an environment variable would be the easiest. To do
that, the QE code could register a call-back that says, "If you see a QE
firmware blob, call this function and pass the address of the blob".

--
Timur Tabi
Linux kernel developer at Freescale