[U-Boot-Users] Making uboot.bin

[Jerry Van Baren]

Muneet wrote:
> Hello Friends,
> 
> I am entirely new to uboot. 
> I had read the uboot manual and have a small grasp over it.
> I am working on MPC8323E-RDB board.
> 
> I have following questions for you:-
> 
> 1. Can we use uboot only for booting Linux? 

No, it has been used to boot other OSes (e.g. vxWorks).

> 2. Is the kernel necessary for the board or standalone application alone can
> serve the purpose?

A standalone application can do the job if you write it to do the job. 
Therein lies the rub: a kernel takes care of a lot of low level details 
that take a lot of time to rewrite.

If you application is simple, standalone application code can do the 
job.  Since you are running on MPC8323, that would imply your 
application isn't simple.

> 3. How big can be the size of standalone applications?

Nearly as big as the memory on your board.

> 4. The uboot is already installed by manufacturer on my board, can i take
> the backup of that   from board?

Yes, but that is dependent on your tools and generally is more difficult 
than it is worth.  You have access to the source of the u-boot image on 
the board (thanks to the GPL).  You should be able to rebuild the image 
from source.  That is a good exercise to proof out your build tools and 
techniques before you start building custom (broken) builds and wonder 
if the brokenness is your tools, your technique, or your modified code.

> 5. For porting uboot to a board what cross compilation tools are required?
> If ELDK can serve this purpose?

ELDK is what 97% of the u-boot developers use (...and 89.3% of all 
statistics are made up).

> Plz do reply
> 
> Thanks,
> Muneet Garg

Best regards,
gvb