[U-Boot] [PATCH] wandboard: add pxe support, set default boot command like highbank

[Wolfgang Denk]

Dear Tom Rini,

In message <20130804202746.GH5164 at bill-the-cat> you wrote:
> 
> > But your requirement is just one out of a number of such requirements,
> > and I see no indication that an "one size fits all" approach would be
> > possible.
> 
> And today we have no ability to easily opt-in to any of the "one size
> fits many" approachs we have scattered about in config files today.

I am not that pessimistic.  The tools are all available and in place.
"env import" (and other capabilities of the "env" command) allow to
import any set of environment from any storage location U-Boot can
handle.  This allows to implement all kind of fancy features, like
"user profiles", "reset to factory defaults", etc. etc.  Of course it
also allows to implement settings needed to support booting of a
standard distribution.

> > Just stating what you don't want, and what you want, is not exactly a
> > constructive process.  It's like saying: "I'm right, you all are
> > wrong."
> 
> Well, from their (the distro point of view) point of view, they don't
> want to have to come up with yet another set of tools (like they're
> having to do today, there's a rather large hunk of logic Fedora has for
> booting a handful of boards).  I'd really love to see someone come up
> with a parser of extlinux.conf
> (http://www.freedesktop.org/wiki/Specifications/BootLoaderSpec/) for
> U-Boot.

You mean, as an external tool, to translate extlinux.conf into a set
of U-Boot commands?

> > The thing is, that the overwhelming majority of systems are not
> > running a standard distro like Fedora, and don't have any such
> > features as boot extlinux.conf files or sysboot or whatever -they
> > don;t have it, and they cannot afford it because they have totally
> > different requirements to meet.  Please try and keep this in mind.
> > Yourrequiremetns are but a special case here - one which we will try
> > to support in the best possible way, of course, but it's just one out
> > of many.
> 
> That a large number of maker folks are using ARM boards, that use Linux
> and U-Boot is a good thing.  That it's quite a pain for each new board
> and user to get a familiar environment up, is a problem.  And I would
> say the defaults in reference platforms should be pretty wide ranging.

Define "reference platform"?   Do you think, for example, systems in
the class of TI's AM1808 or Freescale's i.MX28 are adequate targets to
run Fedora?  Does Fedora actually support any targets below ARMv7 ?

Best regards,

Wolfgang Denk

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