From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 From: Dirk Behme Date: Thu, 17 Jan 2013 08:05:59 +0100 Subject: [U-Boot] U-Boot Graphics Library? In-Reply-To: References: <20130116194630.A2656203ACF@gemini.denx.de> <20130116224007.8BFC8203AD1@gemini.denx.de> Message-ID: <50F7A2D7.90405@de.bosch.com> List-Id: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit To: u-boot@lists.denx.de On 16.01.2013 23:54, Simon Glass wrote: > Hi Wolfgang, > > On Wed, Jan 16, 2013 at 2:40 PM, Wolfgang Denk wrote: >> Dear Simon Glass, >> >> In message you wrote: >>> The problem is that a major purpose of the GUIs is to allow installing >>> an OS from a USB stick/SD card, since the OS may have become corrupted >>> and unbootable. We have looked at keeping around a separate OS image >>> for this (e.g. in an available disk partition), but so far that hasn't >>> proved practical since that itself can be fairly easily overwritten >>> and we then have a doorstop. >>> >>> The less fancy, the better, but consumers have certain expectations >>> that force us to make some efforts...there is already a single font in >>> U-Boot, but it's not good enough for multi-language pretty displays >>> unfortunately. >> Why don't you load and start a small recovery system from the USB >> stick then? I don't see why you need a GUI to do that. This could be >> mostly made automatic. > > That's exactly what we do, yes! > > But the user has to be told that there is a problem, and be able to > select their language so they can understand the instructions. The USB > image needs to be downloaded, and the stick inserted. Also we require > that the stick be inserted while we are watching, since this shows > that the user is actually present, and it is not a remote attacker > causing recovery. All of this means instructions are needed, hence the > bitmaps and text. Yes, we were thinking about the same use case: An U-Boot based device where U-Boot is responsible for the whole system update, including the OS. The user has to insert an USB stick or SD card containing the files to be updated. Then U-Boot has to copy these files to the NOR, NAND or whatever the system boots from. The only user interface is a display, no serial console. On the display something like "Please insert the USB stick", "Update in progress, please wait", "Update successfully finished", "Update error xx" has to be shown, then. Best regards Dirk