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From: Jerry Van Baren <gerald.vanbaren@smiths-aerospace•com>
To: linuxppc-dev@ozlabs•org
Subject: Re: [PATCH 10/11] Add MPC8360EMDS board support
Date: Wed, 04 Oct 2006 12:05:21 -0400	[thread overview]
Message-ID: <4523DBC1.30108@smiths-aerospace.com> (raw)
In-Reply-To: <80EE3621-ED80-408E-BF04-BA3CB985C769@embeddedalley.com>

Dan Malek wrote:
> On Oct 4, 2006, at 1:52 AM, Benjamin Herrenschmidt wrote:
> 
>> I don't see how a mecanism of feature call at the board support  
>> level is
>> in any way incompatible with the device-tree thing.
> 
> It isn't.
> 
>> ...  I'm happy mixing
>> both on powermac :)
> 
> I know.  This was just an opportunity to make people
> realize that a board port does require the writing of
> some board specific code.  Using the feature call is
> an excellent model of portability and flexibility.  My
> point was that any BCSR access is necessary to be
> hidden behind such a function, because it is truly
> board specific.  You can't require the drivers to
> have this kind of logic in them, they must call out
> to board support functions for assistance.
> 
> Just like the powermac ports, embedded drivers
> will need a feature call at some points during
> their processing (set up clock routing, IO pin
> configuration, board specific bus connections,
> power management, etc).  Some board ports
> may do nothing, others may do lots of work.
> 
> Therefore, I see no reason why a BSCR address
> and all of it's associated format can't simply
> be a #define in a board specific file.  There is no
> need for this in the device tree.
> 
> 
> 	-- Dan

The promise of OF for me is that it promises to keep configuration 
information in _one place_.  My experience to date is that my u-boot has 
a bunch of semi-hardcoded constants, my linux drivers have a bunch of 
semi-hardcoded constants that likely do not match 1:1 (name and 
definitely not location) with the equivalent u-boot constants, and some 
constants are passed from u-boot to linux using the BD structure, which 
is never defined the same (for me) in u-boot and linux.

The result is that, when I upgrade my u-boot and/or linux sources, I end 
up having to re-find all the places where the constants live (and find 
some new places), fix them, and then make the u-boot and linux BD 
structures match.  Granted, this isn't insurmountable, but it is a major 
hassle and should be unnecessary.

In a perfect world perhaps we would have one (set of) #include file(s) 
that had all the configuration information necessary to build u-boot and 
linux.  In the current world, u-boot and linux are in different 
repositories with different people with different machines (and agendas) 
doing different development on them, and the result is disjoint.

I look at OF to be the /lingua franca/ of PowerPC bootloaders and linux.

gvb

  reply	other threads:[~2006-10-04 16:05 UTC|newest]

Thread overview: 37+ messages / expand[flat|nested]  mbox.gz  Atom feed  top
2006-09-21 12:20 [PATCH 10/11] Add MPC8360EMDS board support Li Yang
2006-09-27  6:39 ` Paul Mackerras
2006-09-27 11:56   ` Vitaly Bordug
2006-09-27 12:02     ` Li Yang-r58472
2006-09-27 12:55       ` Vitaly Bordug
2006-09-27 13:09         ` Ben Warren
2006-09-27 13:20         ` Li Yang-r58472
2006-09-27 13:33           ` Kumar Gala
2006-09-28  6:12             ` Li Yang-r58472
2006-09-30  0:49             ` Paul Mackerras
2006-09-27 14:14           ` Jon Loeliger
2006-09-28  6:38             ` Li Yang-r58472
2006-09-27 14:42         ` Dan Malek
2006-09-27 16:22           ` Olof Johansson
2006-09-28  4:10             ` Dan Malek
2006-09-30 15:56               ` Li Yang
2006-10-04  0:40               ` Paul Mackerras
2006-10-04 13:53                 ` Dan Malek
2006-10-04 17:28                   ` Tim Bird
2006-10-05  0:27                   ` Paul Mackerras
2006-10-05  6:29                     ` Eugene Surovegin
2006-10-04  6:08               ` Benjamin Herrenschmidt
2006-10-04 14:48                 ` Dan Malek
2006-10-04 23:36                   ` Benjamin Herrenschmidt
2006-10-05  0:03                     ` Paul Mackerras
2006-10-05  0:08                       ` Benjamin Herrenschmidt
2006-10-05  0:16                       ` Vitaly Bordug
2006-10-05  6:21                     ` Eugene Surovegin
2006-10-05  6:26                       ` Benjamin Herrenschmidt
2006-10-05  6:31                         ` Eugene Surovegin
2006-10-05  6:33                         ` Eugene Surovegin
2006-10-05  6:51                           ` Benjamin Herrenschmidt
2006-10-04  5:52           ` Benjamin Herrenschmidt
2006-10-04 14:57             ` Dan Malek
2006-10-04 16:05               ` Jerry Van Baren [this message]
2006-09-27 14:57         ` Sergei Shtylyov
  -- strict thread matches above, loose matches on Subject: below --
2006-09-27 13:54 Joakim Tjernlund

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