[ELDK] eldk-5.2

[Wolfgang Denk]

Dear Noam Camus,

In message <264C179F799EF24AB26D5319053335E8072A4E04C8 at ezexch.ezchip.com> you wrote:
> 
> I downloaded eldk-5.2 for powerpc e500v2.
> 
> The installation was quick and simple.

Thanks for the feedback :-)

> It is great to have it all, root file system, toolchain and even found uImage.

Please note that this is just an example configuration whic may or may
not work on your hardware.

> I still looking for u-boot.bin image.
> 
> Where I can find it?

There is none.  If you look at the documentation, you can see that we
call this target configuration "generic-powerpc-e500v2" - instead of
configuring everything (including U-Boot, Linux kernel and device
tree) for one specific machine (= board), we try to provide a
configuration that is generic enough to be used with all boards
deploying a PowerPC e500v2 core.

We can use a common Linux kernel image that works on a number of
boards, but both the U-Boot image and the device tree blob have always
to be built for a specific hardware or board - we cannot do this in
the "generic-powerpc-e500v2" context of the ELDK.

> If I sould create it what is the recepie for e500v2?

There are two ways to approach this target:

1) Classic approach as used with ELDK 4.x and before: download the
   U-Boot source code (for example, clone the git repository), and use
   the ELDK tool chain to configure and build the U-Bootimage for your
   target board.  [Do the same for Linux to build at least the correct
   device tree blob, and usually you would also better build you own,
   matching Linux kernel image.]

2) Use the ELDK 5.x environment as software build environment for your
   own specific needs.  To do that, you would define your own MACHINE
   settings, so you can not only build customized images for U-Boot,
   Linux and the device tree, but also the complete root file system
   as needed on your target board.

   This is actually one of the major improvements of ELDK 5.x over the
   older ELDK releases: in the past, ELDK provided a tool chain, but
   to set up your software build environment, you were mostly on your
   own.  Now with ELDK 5.x, ELDK brings you not only the cross tools
   and the target environment, but also a complete, sophisticated
   software production environment that can easily be extended and
   customized for your specific project needs.

See for example the definition of the "enbw_cmc"-Machine in the ELDK
source tree (meta-eldk/conf/machine/enbw_cmc.conf) - thi snot oneof
the "generic" configurations that tries to support all boards of a
specific CPU family, but a custom configuration for one specific
custom board. Building with MACHINE set to "enbw_cmc" will result in
U-Boot and Linux kernel images, but alo in a root file system image,
all ready configured for installation on "enbw_cmc" boards.

My recommendation is:  for quick tests, just use the tool chain and
build the U-Boot image from the sources (i. e. 1) above);  for long
term, look into 2) above and consider using the new features for your
own software production setup - this will require familiarization and
some work, but you may well find that it's worth to invest such
efforts.

Best regards,

Wolfgang Denk

-- 
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