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:
1) 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.
2) 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.
3) 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
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