[U-Boot] [PATCH] bin_dep.sh Support

[Wolfgang Denk]

Dear Scott Wood,

In message <20090406193049.GB4439 at ld0162-tx32.am.freescale.net> you wrote:
>
> > There are tons of standards for image formats, and even more commonly
> > used formats I would not dare to call standard; but this processor
> > has to invent yet another one?
> 
> The same could be said about u-boot requiring its own image format (ELF
> and raw binary images can't be passed a device tree or bd_t, AFAICT).

When the U-Boot (or rather PPCBoot at that time) development was
starte, there was a very important reason for not using ELF: wasting
a full 64 kB for the standard ELF file header was unthinkable on most
embedded devices of that time.

Now, on fat systems with ample resource on one side, and on the other
side with the infrastructure more or less in place to compose a bootm
command from small,  separate  building  blocks,  it  should  be  not
difficult to add such a feature, too.

On the other hand, ELF images are missing a few key points  available
in  U-Boot  images  so  I would not recommend using plain ELF for any
system where reliability or just ease of use are important (which was
the other part of the rationale that led to that format).

Best regards,

Wolfgang Denk

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