[U-Boot] imx6, spl and falcon boot

[Eric Nelson <eric.nelson@boundarydevices.com>]

Hi Kevin,

I'm a bit late to this party, but have a couple of comments...

On 02/19/2013 08:20 AM, Chaves, Kevin wrote:
> Thanks for the response, so the whoosh does not support holding
 > a key to get into another image? I guess that won't work.
 >

Note that there's already support for key-handling in our
Nitrogen6X code:
	https://github.com/boundarydevices/u-boot-imx6/blob/production/board/boundary/nitrogen6x/nitrogen6x.c#L779

> So if I wanted to support the SPL on the nitrogent6x
> are there any instruction on what requirements it has to
 > support it.
>
The use of SPL seems to be a separate topic.

Is your objective simply a faster boot?

We don't have any specific plans to add SPL support for
Nitrogen6x, but are interested in hearing what you're after.

> I'm guessing all the work I'd need to do is in board/boundary/nitrogen6x?
 >  Also how would I normally configure and build an spl for
 > a working board. There is a lot of config options
 > in the README for the spl.
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Alexandre Belloni [mailto:alexandre.belloni at piout.net]
> Sent: Tuesday, February 19, 2013 9:00 AM
> To: Wolfgang Denk
> Cc: Chaves, Kevin; u-boot at lists.denx.de; Dirk Behme
> Subject: Re: [U-Boot] imx6, spl and falcon boot
>
> On Tue, Feb 19, 2013 at 12:35:01PM +0100, Wolfgang Denk wrote :
>> Dear Alexandre Belloni,
>>
>> In message <20130219112532.GB24397@piout.net> you wrote:
>>>
>>> No, that is not supported and probably won't be. Some people will
>>> argue
>>
>> I think you are wrong.  This is definitely a "not supported _yet_".
>>
>>> that you probably don't need a bootloader once you are able to boot
>>> a linux kernel as you can probably do everything you want from there.
>>
>> Yes, some people will think so, and some will actually do that.
>> Others (and I would expect these to be the majority) will realize the
>> benefits of being able to switch on demand (say, key press, jumper
>> setting, etc.) between different boot modes, boot images, etc.
>>
>> I am absolutely sure that SPL support for iMX6 will be added rather
>> sooner than later.
>>
>
> Yeah, don't misinterpret me, I was just saying that it will not be
 > supported in whoosh. I also believe that SPL and falcon mode will
 > come to i.mx6 and I'm also interested in getting that support ;)
>

Whoosh seems pretty compelling with such a small code base.
Does it really boot faster though? Do you have any numbers
for TTP (Time-to-penguin) on a SABRE Lite or SABRE SD?

Regards,


Eric