From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 From: Julien Grall Subject: Re: [PATCH v4] xen: arm: introduce uImage probe function for Dom0 Date: Wed, 27 Aug 2014 10:40:41 -0400 Message-ID: <53FDEDE9.30402@linaro.org> References: <1409147123-31890-1-git-send-email-oleksandr.dmytryshyn@globallogic.com> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"; Format="flowed" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Return-path: In-Reply-To: <1409147123-31890-1-git-send-email-oleksandr.dmytryshyn@globallogic.com> List-Unsubscribe: , List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , Sender: xen-devel-bounces@lists.xen.org Errors-To: xen-devel-bounces@lists.xen.org To: Oleksandr Dmytryshyn , Ian Campbell , Stefano Stabellini , Tim Deegan , xen-devel@lists.xen.org List-Id: xen-devel@lists.xenproject.org Hi Oleksandr, On 27/08/14 09:45, Oleksandr Dmytryshyn wrote: > Patch adds a possibility to boot dom0 kernel from uImage. > This is needed to improve boot-time. Comparing to zImage, > uImage is not packed, therefore we can save time needed > to unpack. This is not entirely true. uImage is a container format to encapsulate anything you want. For instance I'm using a zImage in it. OOI, if you don't want compress image, why not using ELF? In any case, I think this is a good patch, it will avoid some hackish command in U-boot when the kernel is provided as a uImage :). > + > + if ( start == 0 ) > + printk(XENLOG_ERR "uImage start position is not defined\n"); > + > + info->zimage.start = start; I think you misunderstood my point on the previous version. As Xen may allocate DOM0 bank anywhere in the memory, the uImage should contain a position independent kernel image. Otherwise the user may see failure if it decides to change the amount of memory for DOM0. In general use case, I think Xen should ignore the start field and decide itself where to load the kernel in memory. This will allow the user to use the same uImage to boot on bare metal and as DOM0. It will be very useful for Linaro testing as the image (kernel + distribution) is built generically. We only provide an additional layer with the Xen image. Regards, -- Julien Grall