[U-Boot-Users] Can u-boot run on xscale platform?

[Andrew Dyer]

On 11/18/06, Wolfgang Denk <wd at denx.de> wrote:
> In message <BAY23-F2162CD86EF1030FE846BFA5EF0 at phx.gbl> you wrote:
> >
> > Hi,everybody. I have some experience on RedBoot, another bootloader. The
> > processor I used is IOP331 based on xscale architeture. When i was porting
> > RedBoot to my hardware, I found it that RedBoot is a good bootloader with
> > rich functions, but on the other hand complexity is increased. Since i just
> > want to initilize my hardware and then load kernel, what i need really is a
> > light-weight bootloader. I don't want to change my hardware, my friend
> > suggest u-boot, but does anybody have such experience to run u-boot on IOP
> > series?
>
> It should be no problem to port U-Boot to your system.
>
> But then, I doubt that U-Boot is more "light-weight" or significantly
> easier to port then redboot.  In  the  end  you  will  see  that  the
> necessary  knoledge  about  your  hardware  and the botloader code is
> about the same.
>

Having ported both, I'd have to say u-boot is a much easier port.  The
required code and understanding is about the same, but the
configuration and build scheme is fairly complex in eCos/Redboot.  It
has some nice features, but for just Redboot it's huge overkill.  I
like the makefile system in u-boot better.

The code in eCos is more structured and layered, so it tends to make
you jump around a lot to follow whats going on.  Both require a good
understanding of cpp, but I think eCos abuses the preprocessor more
:-).

u-boot seems to be more actively developed, and the mailing lists are
much more active.

All that said, for similar features enabled, it's been my experience
the image sizes are fairly close.

-- 
Hardware, n.:
        The parts of a computer system that can be kicked.