[U-Boot] U-Boot Graphics Library?

[Dirk Behme]

On 16.01.2013 23:54, Simon Glass wrote:
> Hi Wolfgang,
> 
> On Wed, Jan 16, 2013 at 2:40 PM, Wolfgang Denk <wd at denx.de> wrote:
>> Dear Simon Glass,
>>
>> In message <CAPnjgZ3rNhvL98JEOPV=90u-Wr3iEqs8QgqYaz=bOohRFRJeEA at mail.gmail.com> you wrote:
>>> The problem is that a major purpose of the GUIs is to allow installing
>>> an OS from a USB stick/SD card, since the OS may have become corrupted
>>> and unbootable. We have looked at keeping around a separate OS image
>>> for this (e.g. in an available disk partition), but so far that hasn't
>>> proved practical since that itself can be fairly easily overwritten
>>> and we then have a doorstop.
>>>
>>> The less fancy, the better, but consumers have certain expectations
>>> that force us to make some efforts...there is already a single font in
>>> U-Boot, but it's not good enough for multi-language pretty displays
>>> unfortunately.
>> Why don't you load and start a small recovery system from the USB
>> stick then?  I don't see why you need a GUI to do that.  This could be
>> mostly made automatic.
> 
> That's exactly what we do, yes!
> 
> But the user has to be told that there is a problem, and be able to
> select their language so they can understand the instructions. The USB
> image needs to be downloaded, and the stick inserted. Also we require
> that the stick be inserted while we are watching, since this shows
> that the user is actually present, and it is not a remote attacker
> causing recovery. All of this means instructions are needed, hence the
> bitmaps and text.

Yes, we were thinking about the same use case: An U-Boot based device 
where U-Boot is responsible for the whole system update, including the 
OS. The user has to insert an USB stick or SD card containing the files 
to be updated. Then U-Boot has to copy these files to the NOR, NAND or 
whatever the system boots from. The only user interface is a display, no 
serial console. On the display something like "Please insert the USB 
stick", "Update in progress, please wait", "Update successfully 
finished", "Update error xx" has to be shown, then.

Best regards

Dirk