[U-Boot] U-Boot and ELDK

[U-Boot] U-Boot and ELDK

[Roman Mashak]

Hello.

I apologize if my question sounds silly :)

There are numerous toolchains and kits out there -- head's spinning.
ELDK is one of them. In my understanding ELDK focuses on PowerPC
architecture, but toolchains for ARM/MIPS architectures are also
available. How reasonable is it to take it and use it for, let's say,
ARM9 based platform ?

How necessary is it to install ELDK in order to be able to compile
U-Boot for non-PPC platform?

Thanks.

-- 
Roman Mashak

[U-Boot] U-Boot and ELDK

[Wolfgang Denk]

Dear Roman,

In message <40a670230809112359j4c1d9cf1p56afc8114b81bf6d@mail.gmail.com> you wrote:
> 
> There are numerous toolchains and kits out there -- head's spinning.
> ELDK is one of them. In my understanding ELDK focuses on PowerPC
> architecture, but toolchains for ARM/MIPS architectures are also

In theory, ELDK supports ARM, MIPS, and PowerPC likewise. Relaity  is
that  we  are  customer  driven, and normally new versions get ported
PowerPC first, then ARM, and finally MIPS. You can see this right now:
the PowerPC has been out for a couple of months, ARM is still a few
weeks away, and MIPS also.

> available. How reasonable is it to take it and use it for, let's say,
> ARM9 based platform ?

It's perfectly reasonable. We use only the ELDK four our work, on all
 ARM, MIPS, and PowerPC systems.

> How necessary is it to install ELDK in order to be able to compile
> U-Boot for non-PPC platform?

It's not necessary. You can use any  other  (decent)  tool  chain  as
well.  The  nice  thing  with the ELDk is that it comes ready-to-use,
well tested, and in indentical versions for ARM, MIPS,  and  PowerPC.
And  it's  not  only a cross tool chain, but also the native run time
environment which will come in handy once you got U-Boot running  and
go forward to porting Linux :-)

Best regards,

Wolfgang Denk

-- 
DENX Software Engineering GmbH,     MD: Wolfgang Denk & Detlev Zundel
HRB 165235 Munich, Office: Kirchenstr.5, D-82194 Groebenzell, Germany
Phone: (+49)-8142-66989-10 Fax: (+49)-8142-66989-80 Email: wd at denx.de
READ THIS BEFORE OPENING PACKAGE: According to Certain Suggested Ver-
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this Product May Decay to Nothingness Within the  Next  Four  Hundred
Million Years.

[U-Boot] U-Boot and ELDK

[Jerry Van Baren]

Wolfgang Denk wrote:
> Dear Roman,
> 
> In message <40a670230809112359j4c1d9cf1p56afc8114b81bf6d@mail.gmail.com> you wrote:

[snip]

>> How necessary is it to install ELDK in order to be able to compile
>> U-Boot for non-PPC platform?
> 
> It's not necessary. You can use any  other  (decent)  tool  chain  as
> well.  The  nice  thing  with the ELDk is that it comes ready-to-use,
> well tested, and in indentical versions for ARM, MIPS,  and  PowerPC.
> And  it's  not  only a cross tool chain, but also the native run time
> environment which will come in handy once you got U-Boot running  and
> go forward to porting Linux :-)

To chime in 2c from rumor an innuendo (and some actual experience), some 
of the cross compilation tool builds are actually scripts that pull down 
sources from internet sites and apply patches (also pulled down from 
internet sites) to those sources.  This is done every time you build the 
cross tools.  You do not control the sources/patches.

While this is excellent for staying up to date (bleeding edge) on the 
cross tool environment, the downside is that you cannot go back and 
re-create a given cross tool environment because yesterdays build may 
use a different version of the sources/patches than todays build.

ELDK is a well packaged binary distribution (with full source available) 
that can be archived and (re)installed at any time in the future with 
predictable results.

It also captures all the sources necessary to recreate a given version 
so you can rebuild version 4.0[1] and have it match the version 4.0 you 
used months/years ago.  For some uses, this doesn't matter.  For long 
term business use where you may have to reinstall your tool set long 
after it has been declared "obsolete", this is a vital difference.

> Best regards,
> 
> Wolfgang Denk
> 

Thanks to denx.de for providing the ELDK,
gvb

[1] Theoretically ;-).  Rebuilding from source in practice may be 
challenging.

[U-Boot] U-Boot and ELDK

[Roman Mashak]

Hello,

2008/9/12 Wolfgang Denk <wd@denx.de>:
>> What version would you recommend for arm9 development? The latest is
>> 4.2, is it fine?
>
> ELDK 4.2 for ARM has not been released yet; that will take a few mnore
> weeks (4...5, I think). Please use ELDK 4.1 for now.

One more question to clarify my doubts: it's valid to use ELDK
toolchain for both building bootloader and linux kernel? I ever
encountered cases where two distinct toolchains were used to compile
u-boot and kernel, target was ARM9. Does it make sense, and what might
be the reasons for that?

Thanks.

-- 
Roman Mashak

[U-Boot] U-Boot and ELDK

[Wolfgang Denk]

Dear "Roman Mashak",

In message <40a670230809171723s5928d870n9c3b2ba4dd53ad91@mail.gmail.com> you wrote:
> 
> One more question to clarify my doubts: it's valid to use ELDK
> toolchain for both building bootloader and linux kernel? I ever

That's the whole intention of the ELDK - one single  tool  chain  for
boot  loader,  Linux  kernel and application code. Anything else is a
nightmare and simply not acceptable for production use.

> encountered cases where two distinct toolchains were used to compile
> u-boot and kernel, target was ARM9. Does it make sense, and what might
> be the reasons for that?

There are several subtly broken tool chains out that that can be used
for one thing but not for another. They are just that: broken.

I don't want to suggest that the ELDK has no problems, but at least
this is not one of them.

Best regards,

Wolfgang Denk

-- 
DENX Software Engineering GmbH,     MD: Wolfgang Denk & Detlev Zundel
HRB 165235 Munich, Office: Kirchenstr.5, D-82194 Groebenzell, Germany
Phone: (+49)-8142-66989-10 Fax: (+49)-8142-66989-80 Email: wd at denx.de
Die ganzen Zahlen hat der liebe Gott  geschaffen,  alles  andere  ist
Menschenwerk...                                     Leopold Kronecker