Best way to define flash partitions for an MPC8248

[Laurent Pinchart]

Hi everybody,

I'm running Linux 2.6.20 on an MPC8248 using arch/ppc/.

The system flash is divided in 5 partitions, which are currently defined in 
both U-Boot and in the Linux kernel (hardcoded in platform specific code in 
arch/ppc/platforms/). This is error prone, as modifying partition information 
requires a change to the U-Boot environment variables and a recompilation of 
the Linux kernel.

I would like to get rid of partition data in the kernel. I found 3 ways for 
the Linux kernel to get those data from elsewhere:

- command line parsing (using the mtdparts argument)
- redboot partition table parsing
- OF device tree (drivers/mtd/maps/physmap_of.c)

What is the best suited method ? I don't really like the redboot partition 
table, is I haven't found any way to write it from U-Boot. Do I need to 
switch to arch/powerpc/ to use the OF device tree ? If so, is it possible 
today for the MPC8248 processor, or is it still badly supported in 
arch/powerpc/ ? Last but not least, is it possible to change the OF device 
tree from U-Boot at runtime to resize partitions ?

Best regards,

Laurent Pinchart