8260 console problems

[Wolfgang Denk]

In message <3A95783C.6618E177 at mvista.com> Dan Malek wrote:
>
> > PPCBoot does not use _anything_ from the stuff in arch/ppc/mbxboot/
>
> I'm not sure that is such a good idea.......I'm assuming code from

IMHO the code in that directory is  things  that  shoud  be  done  by
firmware  in  the  frist  place.  In my experience, a lot significant
amount of work to get Linux running on a new board  dealt  with  that
stuff. This pain is gone since we use PPCBoot on all systems.

Why do I have to add another serial driver for a  console  interface,
when  the  firmware  already  has one? Why add uncompression code (to
each kernel image!) when we can have this in a central location -  in
the firmware. Etc. etc.

> that directory is run when I am writing low level kernel code.  You
> are going to constantly be updating PPCBoot, and finding that older

Ummm... Why don't _you_ switch to PPCBoot  then?  I  would  certainly
appreciate your halp there...

> versions aren't going to support new kernels.  That code has to be
> run, makes assumptions about the MMU and cache states upon entry,

Is there a good, urgent reason to _change_ the current state?

> and at most expects a bd_info structure from the boot rom.

Right now the "kernel interface" is pretty well  defined  (starts  at
address  0,  r3: ptr to bd_info, r4: start of initrd or 0, r5: end of
initrd, r6: start of command line, r7: end of command line). What are
you going to change, and why?

Wolfgang Denk

--
Software Engineering:  Embedded and Realtime Systems,  Embedded Linux
Phone: (+49)-8142-4596-87  Fax: (+49)-8142-4596-88  Email: wd at denx.de
The light at the end of the tunnel is usually a "No Exit" sign.

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