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

[Bin Meng]

Hi Christian,

On Wed, Dec 3, 2014 at 12:02 AM, Christian Gmeiner
<christian.gmeiner at gmail.com> wrote:
> Hi Bin,
>
> 2014-12-02 5:38 GMT+01:00 Bin Meng <bmeng.cn at gmail.com>:
>> 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.
>>
>
> That sound really interesting! My company is also using Intel Atom
> E6xx based designs
> and I would love to see u-boot/coreboot running on them. What is the
> current state of your
> work?
>

The Atom E6xx U-Boot initial port is almost done and I plan to send
patch series by the end of this week. Hopefully it could catch the
last merge window of v2015.01 release.

Regards,
Bin