[U-Boot] U-Boot & x86 with IDE Flash Drive

[Dallas Clement]

Hello All,

I'm trying to determine if U-Boot is a suitable choice for my
particular motherboard which is a Jetway / Via C7 (i686) mini-ITX
board with a IDE flash drive, and a Realtek 8169 PHY.  I am running an
embedded Linux app on this board.

I have been using Grub2 for the past year and have reached the point
where I need either TFTP or NFS boot capability to 1) ease development
2) provide a firmware recovery mechanism.  Grub2 lacks network boot
capability other than PXE boot which my board does not suppport.

It seems like U-Boot has everything I need but is quite a bit more
complicated to configure.  Can someone please confirm whether or not I
should proceed down this path?  If U-Boot is a suitable choice, could
you also please help me figure out how to install it on

1) an IDE flash drive and 2) a USB thumb drive

Thanks very much,

Dallas Clement