RFC: Location for Device Tree Sources?

[Andy Fleming]

On Aug 9, 2006, at 11:05, Benjamin Herrenschmidt wrote:

>> It's just that I think that the DT *sources* should not  be  part  of
>> the  U-Boot  soutrce  tree, and that the DT should be in fact part of
>> the kernel images that gets booted by U-Boot.
>
> Fair enough, I misunderstood.
>
>> This has been discussed before (see archives), and the agreement  (?)
>> was  to  use  U-Boot's multifile image format for this purpose, where
>> you can combine a Linux kenrel image with a DT image  into  one  file
>> bootable by U-Boot.
>
> Well, I would still like something else. For example, I'm vendor  
> NetFoo
> selling network appliances (ADSL modems, routers, wireless APs, ...).
>
> A certain amount of my products are based on a very similar chipset
> provided by vendor NarrowCom, same core, same ethernet cell, though my
> devices have subtle differences in the various varieties of those  
> chips
> used and what other chips are put around on the board.
>
> I want my devices to have a firmware that pass a DT to the kernel.  
> That
> DT is bolted into the firmware. In fact, it could be separate flash
> blocks (especially if the flash has some small blocks) from the actual
> firmware code but that does not really matter.
>
> That way, I can distribute and maintain a single kernel image update
> package as part of my software update/maintainance solution.


I think you'll find that the changes Matt McClintock made to u-boot  
make this quite possible.  The dtb is kept separate, and passed in by  
u-boot.  If those patches are acceptable, they provide what you  
want.  If they aren't acceptable, we'd be happy to make changes.  We  
just need to know, one way or another.

Andy