[U-Boot] Bare x86 support is merged to u-boot-x86

[Bin Meng]

Hi Bruce,

On Tue, Dec 2, 2014 at 4:28 AM,  <Bruce_Leonard at selinc.com> wrote:
> Simon,
>
>> From: Simon Glass <sjg at chromium.org>
>> To: Bruce_Leonard at selinc.com
>> Cc: "trini at ti.com" <trini at ti.com>, U-Boot Mailing List <u-
>> boot at lists.denx.de>, u-boot-bounces at lists.denx.de, Bin Meng
>> <bmeng.cn at gmail.com>
>> Date: 12/01/2014 12:14 PM
>> Subject: Re: [U-Boot] Bare x86 support is merged to u-boot-x86
>> Sent by: sjg at google.com
>>
>> +Bin
>>
>> Hi Bruce,
>>
>> On 1 December 2014 at 12:33,  <Bruce_Leonard at selinc.com> wrote:
>> > Hi Simon and Bin,
>> >
>> > u-boot-bounces at lists.denx.de wrote on 11/25/2014 01:51:06 PM:
>> >
>> >> From: Simon Glass <sjg at chromium.org>
>> >> To: U-Boot Mailing List <u-boot at lists.denx.de>
>> >> Cc: "trini at ti.com" <trini at ti.com>
>> >> Date: 11/25/2014 01:52 PM
>> >> Subject: [U-Boot] Bare x86 support is merged to u-boot-x86
>> >> Sent by: u-boot-bounces at lists.denx.de
>> >>
>> >> Hi Bin (and others interested in U-Boot on x86),
>> >>
>> >> I've applied the remaining x86 patches to u-boot-x86. It runs on
>> >> chromebook_link (Pixel) with support for most hardware relevant to a
>> >> boot loader: SDRAM, SPI, PCI, USB (and USB Ethernet), SATA (internal
>> >> 32GB SSD), SD card, LCD, UART, keyboard, EC.
>> >>
>> >> Bin this should be a good base for you to send patches for your Atom
>> >> platform and I have no major work pending now so should not get in
>> >> your way.
>> >>
>> >> Instructions on how to build and run are here:
>> >>
>> >> http://www.denx.de/wiki/U-Boot/X86
>
>> >>
>> >> For this platform 4 binary blobs are needed. This is an unavoidable
>> >> feature of the platform at present. The blobs cover flash descriptor,
>> >> SDRAM init, video init and Management Engine. Instructions on how to
>> >> get these are on the same page.
>> >>
>> >> Here is a list of some missing features:
>> >>
>> >> - README.x86 in the source (mostly the content from the Wiki page
>> >> would be a good start)
>> >> - MTRR support (for performance)
>> >> - Audio
>> >> - Chrome OS verified boot (only a rough rebase has been done, I'm not
>> >> sure how to track mainline anyway)
>> >> - SMI and ACPI support, to provide platform info and facilities to
>> >> Linux
>> >>
>> >
>> > This is awesome!  Thanks so much for the work you two have done on this.
>> > We've been using u-boot on our PPC platforms for years and love it.
>> > We're
>> > considering moving to an Atom processor and wanted to continue to use
>> > u-boot, but were worried about getting it up and running with the FSL
>> > from
>> > Intel so we haven't made the jump yet.  This is going to be a hugeleg up
>> > in
>> > my argument for actually getting that project off the ground.  If we do,
>> > I'll be sure to be pushing out any work we do that isn't in the
>> > mainline.
>> >
>> > Thanks again guys!
>>
>> Sounds good! What Atom are you using? It might be the same one as Bin.
>
> Not sure yet.  We had originally settled on the first one Intel put out, but
> since we've waited so long and we're not locked in by design yet, we'll
> probably pick a newer generation.  Our products tend to be in service for a
> long time (upwards of 20 years) so we like to get as cutting edge as we can
> without losing a finger :)

I am currently working on patches to support Intel Atom E6xx with
Platform Controller Hub EG20T. This Atom platform aims at the embedded
market. More newer Atom would be Bay Trail, which is an SoC and I
believe Simon is going to support that platform once he gets a board.
The latest Atom would be Braswell. If Intel keeps open for the chipset
datasheet, I think we can try to support that too. We will see.

Regards,
Bin