[U-Boot] zImage on ARM

[Wolfgang Denk]

Dear Steve Sakoman,

In message <AANLkTi=VbVrSfP1rLGGsEGuWH9kwVy_3TzU_QRQRVD87 at mail.gmail.com> you wrote:
> I have a client that has asked me to look into loading zImage files
> instead of uImage for some ARM based boards.

Why?

> Any words of advice or warning in doing something similar for ARM?

No. IMO it makes little sense.

> Anyone familiar with the history of why uImage is the preferred
> format?  Just trying to learn . . .

uImage, when done correctly, avoids that you have to add a pre-loader
(including all of gzip and what else is needed to copy the uncom-
pressed image to it's final location in RAM) to each and every kernel
image - which is just a waste of time and resources as we already
have all that code present in U-Boot.

Note that the mainline ARM kernel does not make use of this; instead,
it adds the preloader anyway.  I never understood why.

Best regards,

Wolfgang Denk

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