[Gta04-owner] rationale behind having uImage on the first partition?

[Dr. H. Nikolaus Schaller]

Am 24.10.2011 um 11:47 schrieb Neil Jerram:

> On Mon, 24 Oct 2011 10:46:16 +0200, Johannes Schauer wrote:
> 
>> uboot probably hasnt to be touched for a distribution - just kernel and
>> commandline might, right? Or am I missing a scenario where someone would
>> want to do "something" with uboot?

There is e.g. a big step from 2.6.32 to 2.6.34 for the OMAP processor
where the console UART is being renamed from /dev/ttyS2 to /dev/ttyO2.
This must be reflected in the kernel command line.

And as far as I understand there is currently a parameter for defining
the memory to be put aside as a video buffer. This will be managed more
dynamically in Kernels after 3.0.

So sometimes, kernel developers change the way boot args are interpreted,
or add new ones. And then, you have to update them as well.

Since U-Boot has a built-in default command line if the NAND flash was
erased, you may be forced to upgrade/downgrade U-Boot when switching
between kernels. This does not happen often, but I would estimate from history
once a year.

>> 
>> For touching the commandline there could be a mechanism that makes uboot
>> load the commandline from a file as it loades boot.scr.
>> 
>> This is what qi on the gta01/02 did by loading the append-GTA01/02
>> files.

I like this idea!

Where do they put this file? I think also on the ext2/3 partition in /boot? 

How do they read a file into u-boot and then put it into an environment
variable?

Any pointers how they do it?

>> If the default qemu would look for such a file, qemu would not have to
>> be touched by a distribution but just kernel and append file (just as
>> with qi).
>> 
>> You can already tell that I liked how qi did it. ;)
> 
> My 2 cents...
> 
> I would guess that all these things are possible, but it isn't reasonable for us to expect Golden Delicious to do them for us.  We (=> you?) need to take ownership of them now.

Well, we don't have the capacity to do everything, but we try to provide
a simple (to use and understand) and rock-solid basic default distribution
that you can start from (and fall back if your modifications don't work). So
we will be happy for proposals to improve that basic system image.

But our goal is not to provide the only and best distribution
and compete with e.g. SHR, QtMoko, Rowboat/Android, Meego
etc.

-- hns