[U-Boot-Users] using a flat device tree to drive u-boot config

[Kumar Gala]

On Jul 28, 2008, at 12:40 PM, Grant Likely wrote:

> On Mon, Jul 28, 2008 at 10:07:49AM -0500, Kumar Gala wrote:
>> One topic that come up during OLS in discussions and u-boot BOF was
>> the idea of driving u-boot configuration from a device tree instead  
>> of
>> from "config.h".  I was wondering if anyone has actually looked at
>> doing this.
>>
>> One question I have is how does (or should) u-boot identify where to
>> find the device tree.  I think the idea would be that this "area"
>> could be easily reflashed with a new blob to get a new configuration.
>
> In principle I like the idea of having configuration retrieved from  
> the
> device tree blob, but the idea of reflashing the blob in the context  
> of
> u-boot scares me.  In particular, if u-boot depends too much on the
> presence of the blob, then it becomes a method of bricking a board if
> users are able/expected to reflash the blob.

I dont see reflashing the blob as any different than reflashing u-boot  
itself w/respect to bricking a board.

But I agree, in general I would hope u-boot would be able to still  
boot w/o the device tree information (might be crippled, but you could  
recover).

- k