[U-Boot-Users] Proposal for patch to configure networkparameters

[Ulf Samuelsson]

link: www.avrfreaks.net
----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Wolfgang Denk" <wd at denx.de>
To: "Ulf Samuelsson" <ulf at atmel.com>
Cc: <u-boot-users at lists.sourceforge.net>
Sent: Saturday, April 21, 2007 12:59 AM
Subject: Re: [U-Boot-Users] Proposal for patch to configure 
networkparameters


> In message <027c01c78394$16500590$01c4af0a at Glamdring> you wrote:
>>
>> Why should you care if the customer sets a configuration value at compile
>> time or dynamically?
>
> I don't care about this.
>
>> By setting things at compile time, you allow the board to boot up,
>> download a script which gets executed by "autoscr"
>> This script will sets the REAL values for the network.
>> Obviously the values should only be used until manually changed.
>
> OK, in such a configuration you can  add  the  values  to  the  board
> config file, as there is no need to change them frequently, right?
>
>> Not sure, if this is your problem.
>
> No.
>
>> Assume you have no serial communication available...
>> How do you reconfigure the system?
>
> We are not talking about reconfiguration, but about how to initialize
> the default environment. These are two different things.
>
>> Can you explain how to download the environment using the network
>> if you are not allowed to compile in the network parameters?
>
> You don't have to download such parameters.
>
> Please  feel  free  to  set  these  values  somewhere  during   board
> production,  but  you  better  not embed them into the default U-Boot
> image. There are several methods to initialize such parameters  which
> are much cleaner. For example, some boards use some hardware ID block
> which  gets  written separately from the U-Boot image, which then can
> contain board specific parameters like serial  number,  MAC  address,
> and - if you like - additional default netowrk configuration.


Why do you need to separate something which NEVER is going to be written 
again?
There is a cost involved with doing multiple programming steps and those 
should be minimized.

Even if you have multiple servers you can still allocate a duplicated IP 
address
to a network port on each server which is a point to point connection to the
board to be produced.

If there is a need to change these values, a simple recompile will fix that.

And still: The proposed patch will not do anything with network parameters
It will allow people to generate whatever config variables outside U-boot.

How they use this, you will not be aware of so I really do not understand
why you are against the patch.

The only thing the patch does is to add
#include <custom.h>
in the config.h

and then an empty custom.h is created
to make sure that it does not crash compiles of existing boards.
.
The patch has really nothing to do with networking,
so I suggest we stop discussing networking configuration
and start discussing the patch.

Are you against giving developers freedom?


Best Regards
Ulf Samuelsson