Dear Dennis,

In message 20130804163442.31dca315@adria.ausil.us you wrote:

...

But your requirement is just one out of a number of such requirements, and I see no indication that an "one size fits all" approach would be possible.

It should be possible for those systems that want a generic linux distro to run on them. ...

Agreed. But then, all you need is a root file system image (eventually just exported from a NFS server), and a Linux kernel image plus a DT blob (ideally combined into a FIT image). Put the FIT image on a TFTP server, and use DHCP, and you're up and running in a few minutes.

Netbooting is even older than Linux...

               ... AFAIK the wandboard systems are one of those

that do. It's also a system that doesn't ship with any onboard storage so distros are forced to build u-boot for it.

Sorry, I can't parse that. The Wandboard has SDcard support. Where exactly is your problem? You can put all files on a SDcard image, or copy them into a file system on SDcard.

...

Just stating what you don't want, and what you want, is not exactly a constructive process. It's like saying: "I'm right, you all are wrong."

its not at all, if there is some way to achieve much the same thing using some other method please let me know. I don't want to force some solution everywhere. but i want the same solution to be in place for boards that want to have a generic linux distro be supported on it.

Sorry, but I cannot answer your question. You only state what you want to do, and in an already predetermined manner (use pxe, use extlinux.conf, ...). I have no idea what "the same thing" actually is. You never defined it.

I may be naive, but for me booting Linux on a system only requires a kernel image (with DTB, say as a FIT image) and a root file system. If you need to do fancy stuff, we have all kinds of ways to run commands or define environment settings. For example, you could add environment settings (to be activated using "env import") as one part of a FIT image, and all kinds of scripts as another part. Then no changes are needed at all to the U-Boot code, you have it all under your own control, and all necessary information is included in a single file (the FIT image), so booting over the network works the same as booting from a real disk drive.

Best regards,

Wolfgang Denk