[U-Boot] Skipping relocation RAM to RAM, esp. on i.MX6?

[Wolfgang Denk]

Dear Aneesh V,

In message <4F328B41.2050008 at ti.com> you wrote:
> 
> But since then I changed my mind due to some other factors:
> 1. Difficulty in debugging. I use JTAG debuggers. The workarounds
> available are still painful and not many people know about it.

We use JTAG debuggers all day, and have been doing so for well over 10
years.  All development of PPCBoot nad U-Boot has been done withJTAG
debuggers.  Relocation has never been a real problem here.

Reasinf the manual may help - this is documented in detail there.

This is not a good reason to reconsider.

> 2. On FPGA platform, it was adding a considerable delay (I don't have
> the exact number, but that will be in minutes). The u-boot was already
> scaled down and was doing minimal stuff, but this one could not be
> removed easily. That's when I created that patch.

What exactly are you talking about here that "was adding a
considerable delay" - the memory copy ?  Are you really sure about
that?

> 3. Un-necessary complexity without any benefit for our platform. I

Maintaining different configurations of the code that behave
differently, that can cause different types of addressing, compile
and link and debug issues is also adding complexity.  Using a single,
well tested approach is one of the benefits even for your platform.

> nearly get exhausted explaining to new u-boot users how it all works
> and nearly always gets confronted with the question "why do we
> need it?" In our platforms U-Boot starts from SDRAM and we do not need
> any of the flexibilities relocation may provide.

Maybe it would help if you add your explanations to the manual, so you
can point people who ask to the manual instead of repeating this again
and agian?

> At the end of the day I think we are making U-Boot way too complex for
> a bootloader and I think relocation is one of the factors.

Well, if you prefer, you can probably adapt blob
(http://sourceforge.net/projects/blob/) or similar to your system.
That would be definitely less complex.

Hm... isn't it your users who are asking for the features?

Best regards,

Wolfgang Denk

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