Subject: [PATCH 1/2] ARM: mach-imx: Remove board entries in dt_board_compat

From: [email-masked] (Rob Herring)
Date: Mon, 13 Aug 2012 16:48:11 -0500

On 08/13/2012 10:15 AM, Shawn Guo wrote:
> On Thu, Jul 05, 2012 at 03:46:23PM +0800, Shawn Guo wrote:
>> On Thu, Jul 05, 2012 at 09:13:18AM +0200, Sascha Hauer wrote:
>>> Shawn,
>>>
>>> Is this ok with you?
>>>
>> No.
>>
>> http://thread.gmane.org/gmane.linux.ports.arm.kernel/172558/focus=172703
>>
> I change my mind.  Though it's really a pity to lose a concentrated
> place maintaining a full list of compatible strings of all supported
> board, I'm more concerned by the dt_board_compat matching efficiency
> when the table gets longer.
> 

I think this is needless churn. You can't say board entries are never
needed. Perhaps we've been overly active in adding all compatible
strings before they are needed. When you add a new board, it is fine to
match against the soc string without changing the kernel, but the dtb
should still have a more specific string. Then if you need to add
something board specific later, you can add the match entry and
corresponding board specific code.

Rob