Dear Wolfgang,
The advantage I see is this.
- You ship 1 less piece of software. Less number of application that
needs
to be installed/started is always better, IMHO, when it comes to support.
Don't you have to ship a (proprietary?) upload client instead of the (standard) TFTP server?
It could be integrated to our PC side application which can upload it the first time it connects to the target. Integrating TFTP server to our application would require it to start before the user powering up the target.
- It makes the network configuration a bit simpler. If you do not have a
dedicated TFTP server, you must use serial console to setup the server IP before you can boot if you change the tftp server. Users only have to
worry
about 1 IP instead of 2 when setting up our product. Since large number of our users are not very network savvy, things like this make a difference when it comes to support.
As mentioned before, the TFTP server which is used for example by Abatron does not require any special setup on the host.
In any case you will have to setup both the network interfaces on the host and the target.
With TFTP client approach, I need to set the serverip environmental variable to IP of PC with the TFTP server. If I move the controller to another room, and found out that the PC with TFTP server is not powered up, I need to either change the serverip variable to the new PC I intended to use or go back to the other room and power up the PC. :)
I think it's easiest for the user and the developer if the firmware is entirely stored on the flash. If we can upload the OS, we can make it work as if the firmware is on the target (i.e. hide TFTP stuff from the user).
I have no idea how complicated it will be to implement server feature.
It is not complicated. But IMHO not worth the effort.
I always appreciate your comments and opinion.
Thank you.
Brian
=============================================================== Brian S. Park brian@corelis.com (562) 926-6727 x143 --------------------------------------------------------------- Everything we do helps our customers get to market FASTER with HIGHER quality and LOWER cost ===============================================================