Dear Tom, In message <20130804214743.GJ5164@bill-the-cat> you wrote: > > > I am not that pessimistic. The tools are all available and in place. > > "env import" (and other capabilities of the "env" command) allow to > > import any set of environment from any storage location U-Boot can > > handle. This allows to implement all kind of fancy features, like > > "user profiles", "reset to factory defaults", etc. etc. Of course it > > also allows to implement settings needed to support booting of a > > standard distribution. > > How far back do we have an env import command available to all, is one > the questions. ...
The support for this was added with commit ea882ba "New implementation for internal handling of environment variables." on Sun Jun 20, 2010, i. e. more than 2 years ago. That's a long time, actually. > ... I hadn't thought about saying part of the solution is > that distros should provide an environment file to import (and if > applicable, saveenv'ing after). But what I mean is that we have a half > dozen (it feels like) semi-flexible environments different boards/socs > compile in, and it's not easy to share those. One of the requests is a > "sane" default boot command, and we do have a number of boards out there > without a savable environment. Requests for a "sane" environment are comprehensible. However, it will be difficult to reach an agreement what exactly "sane" means here. For example, I have never been able to get accustomed to all the uEnv.txt, user.txt etc. scripts used with a number of boards; for me, all this seems way too complicated and inflexible, and I always try to get rid of this stuff. I'm aware that other people like the approach. OK - I see no problems with that: TIMTOWTDI. I would only have a problem (and a serious one) if such an approach became standard, or even mandatory. Not to mention a large number of projects I know of. > > You mean, as an external tool, to translate extlinux.conf into a set > > of U-Boot commands? > > No, I mean as a run-time command in u-boot to, given a pointer to > extlinux.conf in memory, translate to a set of boot commands. The use > case here is that user installs (via package manager) a new kernel and > just like on your desktop you can chose to boot it, easily enough. Can we not rather do the translation on the host side, so we don;t have to add both the code and the runtime overhead for each boot process? > > Define "reference platform"? Do you think, for example, systems in > > the class of TI's AM1808 or Freescale's i.MX28 are adequate targets to > > run Fedora? Does Fedora actually support any targets below ARMv7 ? > > Fedora (and Ubuntu) don't officialy support sub-v7 platforms but that > hasn't deterred the RPi community from making it happen all the same. > But yes, AM1808 and i.MX28 and anything else with community support, IOs > and upstream support is quite useful for maker folks (again, see RPi). > Debian, iirc, still supports ARMv5 out of the box, and I'm sure anything > that makes "Just Working" out of the box would be welcome in > OpenEmbedded/Yocto-land. Well, OE and Yocto allow to build fine-tuned target environments; they really don't have any new requirements as "standard" distros like Fedroa do. > I'm going to (in a while) hop on the other thread Dennis started and > cross-posted to the cross-distro list, but I firmly believe an opt-in > set of defaults that let distros have to care less about board specifics > is important. Of course, I agree here. But as I meantioned before, we should not try to solve all problems inside U-Boot only. The ARM kernel itself is still undergoing a lot of changes, and a number of issus could be solved in this environment, too. It's a real pity that distro makes appear to have much more influence there than any of the many embedded vendors. Best regards, Wolfgang Denk -- DENX Software Engineering GmbH, MD: Wolfgang Denk & Detlev Zundel HRB 165235 Munich, Office: Kirchenstr.5, D-82194 Groebenzell, Germany Phone: (+49)-8142-66989-10 Fax: (+49)-8142-66989-80 Email: w...@denx.de "Anyone attempting to generate random numbers by deterministic means is, of course, living in a state of sin." - John Von Neumann _______________________________________________ U-Boot mailing list U-Boot@lists.denx.de http://lists.denx.de/mailman/listinfo/u-boot