[U-Boot-Users] uploading OS over network instead of u-boot downloading it from a server.

[Brian S. Park]

At 12:19 AM 6/21/2003 +0200, Wolfgang Denk wrote:
>In message <5.1.1.6.2.20030620145525.012aae48 at corelis.com> you wrote:
> >
> > Is it possible to configure/modify u-Boot so that we upload OS image to it
> > and boot?
> > i.e. instead of u-Boot getting image from a tftp server, it waits for
> > network connection to receive the OS image.
>
>No. So far U-Boot implements a TFTP client only. There is  no  server
>fuctionality of any kind.
>
> > If it is possible, we can save some money on flash since we only need to
> > put a flash large enough to hold u-Booot instead of u-Boot+Linux+file 
> system.
>
>I don't understand this. How is this affected by U-Boot being  server
>or client? You can do the same in both configurations. We have U-Boot
>and  Linux  running  on systems with just a 128 kB EPROM (yes, a real
>UV-erasable EPROM, you remember?).

I understood/assumed 128k is for u-boot only.

The idea is to ship the product with small flash which is large enough hold 
u-boot only.
It won't be practical (support nightmare!) for us to ask our customers to 
setup a tftp server in order to use our product.
However, if the boot loader is capable of receiving the OS image over the 
network, our PC side application can upload the OS and Ram disk image to 
our custom board the first time it connects to it.

Is this not a good idea?

Thanks always.

>--
>Software Engineering:  Embedded and Realtime Systems,  Embedded Linux
>Phone: (+49)-8142-4596-87  Fax: (+49)-8142-4596-88  Email: wd at denx.de
>f u cn rd ths, u cn gt a gd jb n cmptr prgrmmng.

===============================================================
Brian S. Park  brian at corelis.com  (562) 926-6727 x143
---------------------------------------------------------------
Everything we do helps our customers get to market
FASTER with HIGHER quality and LOWER cost
===============================================================