Hello Tiger,

On Fri, Jan 10, 2014 at 8:32 AM, TigerLiu@viatech.com.cn wrote:

Hi, experts:

Does U-boot have any plan to support ARMv8 SOC?

I'm replying to this because I'd like some confirmation on the development process.

u-boot is an open source bootloader. It isn't run by a single organization (though it IS headed by denx). Architecturally the software can be divided into multiple processor and development boards.

Now, if organization A is developing a new processor (along with development board) and they want to use u-boot as the bootloader, they would need to write the necessary /cpu sections by themselves and post it as a patch to the u-boot mailing list. Assuming it meets the coding standards, it will usually get accepted. After that, organization A would need to develop the necessary board additions and submit that as a patch as well.

Why are things done this way? From the mailing list perspective, it is organization-A which wants to port u-boot to their brand new processor/development board. Thus, organization-A will need to do the hard work to make it happen. organization-A is, of course, free to ask for help or assistance from the mailing list and is encouraged to use the architecture independent modules (part of u-boot) in their development.

Looking it at from another perspective, it is rather arrogant (and rude) of organization-A to build a brand new processor, come in here and expect u-boot to magically support it. Most people don't work for free. And even if they wanted to, since the rest of the mailing list does not have physical access to the new processor/board, how much help can you _reasonably_ expect?

Nvidia has decleared 64bit SOC plan.

So, i think bootloader for ARMv8 SOC is urgent now.

Coming back to your specific case, I would think it best to ask nVidia if they have any plans to support u-boot on the new ARMv8 SOC.

Can someone more experienced from the list confirm/deny my understanding?

-Abraham V.

-----Original Message----- From: u-boot-bounces@lists.denx.de [mailto:u-boot-bounces@lists.denx.de] On Behalf Of TigerLiu@viatech.com.cn Sent: Friday, January 10, 2014 8:33 AM To: u-boot@lists.denx.de Subject: [U-Boot] [U-boot] Uboot's plan for ARMv8

Hi, experts:

Does U-boot have any plan to support ARMv8 SOC?

Nvidia has decleared 64bit SOC plan.

So, i think bootloader for ARMv8 SOC is urgent now.

Although ARM Ltd recommended UEFI firmware as ARMv8's bootloader.

But not a requirement.

On Consumer Electronics market, Uboot has huge influence.

So, Does U-boot have any plan to support ARMv8 SOC?

I am sure you must have seen patches from David Feng (added in cc) for u-boot support for ARMv8 foundation model (see reference [1]).

It compiles fine for me with the Linaro 'aarch64-linux-gcc' toolchain and is able to boot ARMv8 foundation model. With my SMSC ethernet related changes (already part of David's v16 patchset), I am able to TFTP standard vanilla Linux images onto the foundation model (along with a simple busybox RFS) and boot Linux on the same and test some simple applications like tftp on linux.

This base code can be easily used to add support for a 'real' ARMv8 based SoC.

Hope this helps.

[1] https://www.mail-archive.com/u-boot@lists.denx.de/msg127876.html

Regards, Bhupesh

On Fri, Jan 10, 2014 at 11:02:43AM +0800, TigerLiu@viatech.com.cn wrote:

Hi, experts:

Does U-boot have any plan to support ARMv8 SOC?

I think the short answere here is that it's not quick to merge in brand new arch support (it's more than just adding a new SoC family, it's adding in a new processor family too) but we're on track to have ARMv8 support in the next release. I would then expect that..

Nvidia has decleared 64bit SOC plan.

... any nvidia ARMv8 platforms to come in via the u-boot-tegra tree and other ARMv8 platforms to come in via their respective platforms (if i.MX9000, which I just made up, is where Freescale does ARMv8, it can still go via u-boot-imx as far as I'm concerned) unless that custodian really wants someone else to own it.