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

[Flemming Richter Mikkelsen]

On Mon, Oct 24, 2011 at 15:54, Johannes Schauer <j.schauer at email.de> wrote:
> Hi,
>
> On Mon, Oct 24, 2011 at 03:38:05PM +0200, Dr. H. Nikolaus Schaller wrote:
>> 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.
>
> but this is not uboot - just the commandline uboot gets from somewhere.
> in our case: from the boot.scr
>
>> So sometimes, kernel developers change the way boot args are
>> interpreted, or add new ones. And then, you have to update them as
>> well.
>
> which is even more a reason to have variable boot args possible. if one
> can changed the commandline without touching uboot it would make all of
> these things much simpler
>
>> >> 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!
>
> great!
>
>> Where do they put this file? I think also on the ext2/3 partition in
>> /boot?
>
> yes
>
>> How do they read a file into u-boot and then put it into an
>> environment variable?
>
> qi is not uboot. it's a standalone bootloader which was written to be
> minimal. so qi was made to be never touched after installation but you
> could change the /boot/append file and /boot/uImage to your liking as
> they were read by qi
>
>> Any pointers how they do it?
>
> no idea how to do it with u-boot yet - but I will investigate as I want
> this feature.
>

If I remember correctly, the u-boot used in the pandaboard uses a file
from /boot for kernel parameters.

The boot instructions:
http://omappedia.org/wiki/PandaBoard_FAQ#How_do_I_saveenv_for_boot_args_on_a_PandaBoard.3F

The project page:
http://pandaboard.org/