[U-Boot] [PATCH 1/2] Serial support extended up to 6 COMs

Detlev Zundel dzu at denx.de
Tue Mar 23 11:01:37 CET 2010


Hi Michael,

> Added support for extra ns16550 chip extending total number of
> supported COMs up to 6. This targets the cases when due to the
> insufficient number of UART ports on the CPU chip designers are
> forced to put additional ns16550 chip on board.

Additionally to Wolfgangs comments, let me make a few observations here.
In a different project I also thought on how to implement functionality
compared to what you try to achieve and in the end I got the impression
that this is a very good chance to introduce a real device model into
U-Boot.  We have been thinking about this for a long time[1] but nobody
came around hacking on it yet.  If you check the BOF page, you can see
that this will also open up a way to do a dynamic driver configuration,
e.g. by device tree.  This is one direction we really need to cover
somehow - sooner or later.

What do you think - do you want to go the extra distance?

For a transitional time, I think we can also live with two serial driver
implementatinos - after all, we have 5 "mpsc.c" files in the tree
currently, so every chance for a cleanup is welcome :)

Cheers
  Detlev

[1] http://www.denx.de/wiki/view/U-Boot/OLSUbootBOF

-- 
["From 2.4 to 2.6 to 2.7" discussing release numbering of the Linux kernel]
Let the bike-shed-painting begin.
                                     -- Linus Torvalds 
--
DENX Software Engineering GmbH,      MD: Wolfgang Denk & Detlev Zundel
HRB 165235 Munich,  Office: Kirchenstr.5, D-82194 Groebenzell, Germany
Phone: (+49)-8142-66989-40 Fax: (+49)-8142-66989-80 Email: dzu at denx.de


More information about the U-Boot mailing list