[U-Boot] Providing more board info from U-Boot to resident OS

[U-Boot] Providing more board info from U-Boot to resident OS

[Matthew Lear]

Hello all,

U-Boot provides data containing board information to a resident OS that
may be booted. Are there plans to extend this so that an additional
'level' of more specific board information can be provided to the OS?

Specifically, and for example, is there a mechanism that U-Boot can use
to inform the OS (Linux in this case) that it has enabled the watchdog
on the cpu?

Granted, U-Boot and the OS are separate entities up to a point, ie some
kernel arch set up implementations make reference to (or rather, copy)
data structures in u-boot.h (eg Freescale Coldfire).

However, for custom hardware and/or applications there are definite
cases where there is the requirement for more board specific knowledge
to be shared between U-Boot and OS.

Is there a way to do this?

Feedback much appreciated.

Thanks,
--  Matt

[U-Boot] Providing more board info from U-Boot to resident OS

[Wolfgang Denk]

Dear Matthew Lear,

In message <4A532251.8090906@bubblegen.co.uk> you wrote:
> 
> U-Boot provides data containing board information to a resident OS that
> may be booted. Are there plans to extend this so that an additional
> 'level' of more specific board information can be provided to the OS?

There are  no  such  plans,  other  than  converting  more  and  more
architectures  to use the device tree to pass such information, which
inherently is extensible.

> Specifically, and for example, is there a mechanism that U-Boot can use
> to inform the OS (Linux in this case) that it has enabled the watchdog
> on the cpu?

Use the device tree.

Best regards,

Wolfgang Denk

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