[U-Boot-Users] ATA driver in U-Boot
Wolfgang Denk
wd at denx.de
Fri Oct 8 22:31:46 CEST 2004
In message <41668573.16343.3D098D at localhost> you wrote:
>
> Is there any reason that U-Boot needs ATA support compiled in? I ask because
No, there is not. Which is the reason that this is an option which is
configurable. And actually most of the boards don't enable it.
> I'm trying to speed up booting on a small system with a hard drive. U-Boot
> waits for the devices to become available, scanning the ATA bus, before
> proceeding to load the Linux kernel. It appears to me that the kernel then
> does the same thing again, whereas if it went ahead and went straight to
> loading the kernel, it would give the drive another second or two to spin up
> and be ready for a bus scan.
If you enable ATA support in U-Boot you do this because you intend to
use the disk in U-Boot. If this will never be the case then simply
don't enable it. You get what you ask for.
> Given that the kernel is being loaded out of flash (with all drivers compiled
> in), and that the only reference to the IDE drive that U-Boot really knows
> about is a commandline parameter passed to the kernel, would it cause any
> conspicuous problems to remove ATA support from U-Boot, or does the kernel
> depend on hardware information that U-Boot is providing (I notice there's a
> "U-Boot" section in the kernel config)?
The kernel does not know which boot loader was running. Just deiable
ATA support (or anything else) in U-Boot if you don't need it.
Best regards,
Wolfgang Denk
--
Software Engineering: Embedded and Realtime Systems, Embedded Linux
Phone: (+49)-8142-4596-87 Fax: (+49)-8142-4596-88 Email: wd at denx.de
1 1 was a race-horse, 2 2 was 1 2. When 1 1 1 1 race, 2 2 1 1 2.
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