[U-Boot] [PATCH 1/3] [RFC] Add support for early serial debugconsole

[Wolfgang Denk]

Dear Ken.Fuchs at bench.com,

In message <AA28F077645B324881335614E4F7C4284A4A2E at win-ex01.bench.com> you wrote:
>
> In my opinion, the serial device should be the first device
> initialized and utilized before all other devices where that
> is possible.  For example, it would be very useful to have

This is exactly how U-Boot was designed. However, we try to do this in
C, and we try to support all kinds of hardware to do so.

> serial output while debugging RAM initialization.  An early
> serial port prior to U-Boot relocating itself would be very
> useful for porting U-Boot to new boards.

We have that, and always had this as long U-Boot and PPCBoot exist.

> Is the patch submitted clean enough?  No, the implementation

The patch itself may be ok, but the concept is broken, and that's why
I reject it.

> I agree that a JTAG debugger is extremely useful for board
> bring-up, but they are very expensive.

Calculate you own time wasted on fruitless attempts to  get  a  board
working  times your hourly rate and you get ... enough money for more
than one BDI3000.

> I'm strongly in favor of having some early serial functionality
> whether in the form of simply being able to send output to the
> serial port or having a semi-functional to fully functional shell
> prior to RAM relocation.

But hey, we *do* have this. We just don't have an interactve shell
prompt.

Best regards,

Wolfgang Denk

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