On 09/20/2012 10:22:21 AM, Timur Tabi wrote:
Gerlando Falauto wrote:
Hi everyone,
following up Timur's patch on QE microcode:
http://marc.info/?l=u-boot&m=132197537730440&w=2
I was wondering, would it make any sense to *embed* QE's firmware
within
u-boot image itself?
There are three problems:
- A lot of U-Boot images are already very close to the 512KB limit.
We often have to disable features in U-Boot to get it to build properly. An additional 64KB would be prohibitive.
The 512K limit is arbitrary and can be changed. It exists just to provide a stable start address on something that grows from the end of flash.
- The firmware license is not exactly GPL-compatible. The firmware
files themselves are freely distributable, but the source code is closed. I'm not sure how that would work in a GPL U-Boot.
- For Fman, at least, we often update the firmware after the board
ships, which means you would need to update U-Boot to get a new firmware. So no one might actually use this feature because they're afraid they won't be able to update the firmware.
If you can do it, go ahead. I would approve a patch that adds the ability to inject a firmware binary into u-boot.bin, provided it's controlled via a build or CONFIG_SYS_xxx option.
CONFIG_xxx. CONFIG_SYS_xxx options are supposed to describe hardware, and CONFIG_xxx options are supposed to be software config.
-Scott