In looking at OF_TBCLK-related code, I noticed that U-Boot has what is basically two structures that contain a variety of "global" data, global_data and bd_info. There are a number of fields in bd_info that also exist in global_data and contain the same value. For instance, we have this in board_init_f():
bd->bi_inpfreq = gd->inp_clk; bd->bi_pcifreq = gd->pci_clk; bd->bi_vcofreq = gd->vco_clk; bd->bi_pevfreq = gd->pev_clk; bd->bi_flbfreq = gd->flb_clk;
From my understanding, the bd_info structure is passed to the kernel as a binary blob, whereas the the global_data structure is used internally by U-Boot to store global data. Obviously, we can't get rid of one or the other.
Wouldn't it be better if the bd_info structure were created and initialized only when Linux is about to be booted? Currently, we have some code that uses bd->xxx and other code that uses gd->xxx, with no real consistence. I think the bd_info structure should be local to cmd_bootm.c, and should be allocated and initialized only if we're booting a non-OF version of Linux. This would eliminate using bd-> for anything other than booting non-OF Linux.
Comments?