[U-Boot] FW: U-boot for Arm cortexA8

[Menon, Nishanth]

Hi Jean,
> -----Original Message-----
> From: u-boot-bounces at lists.denx.de [mailto:u-boot-bounces at lists.denx.de] On Behalf Of Jean-Christophe
> PLAGNIOL-VILLARD
> Sent: Friday, August 22, 2008 7:42 AM
> To: Robert Schwebel
> Cc: U-Boot user list; Peter Pearse
> Subject: Re: [U-Boot] FW: U-boot for Arm cortexA8
> 
> On 13:52 Fri 22 Aug     , Robert Schwebel wrote:
> > On Fri, Aug 22, 2008 at 09:32:52AM +0100, Peter Pearse wrote:
> > > > AFAIK no code specifically for Cortex A8 has yet been posted
> > > > for U-Boot.
> > > >
> > > > However such code is not essential to use U-Boot on a Cortex
> > > > A8 based platform.
> > > >
> > > > Here at ARM we are successfully using the current U-Boot
> > > > head, patched for our development boards, but with no Cortex
> > > > A8 specific amendments to boot linux images.
> > > >
> > > > Other U-Boot functionality might be improved by specific
> > > > porting to Cortex A8, I would be interested to see examples,
> >
> > Note that U-Boot-v2 has also support for the beagle board which is
> > Cortex A8 as well.
> And the beagle Maintainer prepare U-Boot support
> 
If we are speaking of u-boot v2 support, there are tons of opportunities:
a) Coherent ARM architecture which can scale across to all modes.. The tiny patch I had done merely handled one part of the problem - of caches.. There are possibly more opportunities such as:
    i) Organization of ARM code to make it cleanly pluggable and add further features.
    ii) Optimizations where possible -> bitops etc..
    iii) Compiler optimizations and improvements of Makefile
b) Beagle is not the only OMAP3 board around.. There is Zoom MDK, SDP3430, Pandora and many more -> A8 support is just the tip of the iceberg in terms of opportunities.

By the way, U-boot v2 has two platforms with OMAP3 -> SDP3430 and beagle - both have A8 on them.

Speaking specifically about OMAP3 with A8 and beagle support for u-boot v1, Sakoman, Dirk among others have been working on a git branch[1] which could finally move in to mainline tree in the future..

If you are specifically interested in playing/developing with beagle with CortexA8 on a OMAP3530, - just checkout beagleboard.org - if nothing, just the cost might surprise you.

Regards,
Nishanth Menon

[1] http://www.sakoman.net/cgi-bin/gitweb.cgi?p=u-boot-omap3.git;a=shortlog;h=refs/heads/common