[U-Boot-Users] [PPC] PLEASE READ - was: [PATCH] Fix linker scripts: add NOLOAD atribute to .bss/.sbss sections

[Stefan Roese]

Hi Wolfgang,

On Monday 04 February 2008, Wolfgang Denk wrote:
> A possible approach to this  problem  is  to  avoid  using  a  global
> register  variable  and  use  a  plain  global  variable instead. The
> necessary code for this is already there (just commented out); when I
> implemented this initially,  I  decided  to  use  a  global  register
> variable because it gave slightly smaller code.
>
> Here is an overview of the effect (test build of current top of  tree
> for the "katmai" (PPC440SPe) board):
>
> ELDK Version	Register-Var.			Globale Var.
> 	   text    data     bss     dec	      text    data     bss     dec
> 4.0	 243292   13700  322340  579332	    244160   13808  322340  580308
> 4.1	 243292   13700  322340  579332     244160   13808  322340  580308
> 4.2	 section ... overlaps previous	    245496   13188  322340  581024
>
> As you can see, the difference in code size is less than 1 KiB.

Nice.

> My suggestion is to change the code to use a plain  global  variable,
> however  I  need  feedback  if we can / want to do that as it effects
> *ALL* PowerPC boards.

Acked-by for this change from me. I tested successfully on AMCC Katmai, which 
now fits again in the 256k with GCC 4.2.2.

Thanks.

Best regards,
Stefan

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