Hello Wolfgang,
If an older mkimage is detected, or if there is no dtc (Device Tree Compiler)
Why should there ever be no dtc? It is part of the Linux kernel source tree, see arch/powerpc/boot/dtc-src
Okay, I see it is there in 2.6.27-rc, but the version there is pre historical, and definitely in the wrong location, because it is not PowerPC only anymore. It does not support the incbin directive, so it cannot be used to build a uImage. We need at least version 1.2.0 of DTC.
then automagically the legacy format is created. There is also a possibility to force the legacy format by means of a Kconfig option.
As before, I think this should not be implemented as a configuration option; it should be selectable as separate make targets without need to reconfigure / rebuild the kernel.
I agree if you are talking about the other patch which was about choosing between compressed image yes/no; related to the current make targets they should indeed be similar to Image/zImage. I made it configurable because that saved me some time adapting the build-tooling for the target-filesystem. (and thought it could be handy for others too)
But, for this patch I disagree, I do not think it should be separate make targets, because it is choosing between a legacy and a new image file format. Legacy means that it is old and should go away some time. When it comes to functionality it will behave the same like the old uImage (on no-powerpc architectures at least), so creating a new filename as make-target would imply all tools that depend on the target name uImage should be adapted to a new name, when there is no new functionality, resulting in a very long time before the new format because 'the standard'. Not to speak about documentation issues. IMO it is a replacement, not just an additional format.
Note: This patch only adapts this for ARM, AVR32, Blackfin and sh architectures. It does not adapt the PowerPC tree, because PowerPC does not use the script at scripts/mkuboot.sh
Hm... Power support would be especially interesting, of course :-)
I knew that, that is why I added this note... But I do not have PowerPC systems (except my PS3, or Qemu) so it is not easy to test any modifications in that area, and there is a risk of breaking things. Besides, if I look at how I believe things are done for PowerPC, it can easily be added to the mkuboot.sh script, once it knows about the FIT format, and the proper tools are available. I may look at that later, when I have more free (hobby) time.
Kind Regards,
Remy