[U-Boot] [RFC PATCH 0/2] ARMv8 Aarch32 support

[Ryan Harkin]

On 2 Dec 2016 19:20, "Tom Rini" <trini at konsulko.com> wrote:
>
> On Fri, Dec 02, 2016 at 04:25:37PM +0000, Ryan Harkin wrote:
> > On 2 December 2016 at 15:41, Tom Rini <trini at konsulko.com> wrote:
> > > On Fri, Dec 02, 2016 at 11:51:07AM +0000, Ryan Harkin wrote:
> > >
> > >> I've been working with Soby Mathew to get U-Boot booting on ARM's
> > >> AEMv8 FVP model in Aarch32 mode.
> > >>
> > >> Soby worked out what needed to be changed and I'm refining the
changes
> > >> into patches that can be built for both Aarch64 and Aarch32 mode.
> > >>
> > >> There are two patches for discussion:
> > >>
> > >> [RFC PATCH 1/2] Add Aarch32 option for ARMv8 CPUs
> > >> [RFC PATCH 2/2] Add vexpress_aemv8a_aarch32 variant
> > >>
> > >> I expect the first patch to be controversial.  I also don't expect
it to
> > >> be accepted, but to demonstrate what changes we needed to make to
get an
> > >> ARMv8 platform to boot in Aarch32 mode when selecting CPU_V7 instead
of
> > >> ARM64 as the CPU type.  This in itself may be the wrong approach.
> > >>
> > >> It adds an ARMV8_AARCH32 config option and some checks in generic
code
> > >> for that option to allow the code to differentiate between the two
> > >> modes.
> > >>
> > >> The second patch should be less controversial.  It adds support for a
> > >> new AEMv8 variant that runs in 32-bit mode.  The most awkward part is
> > >> that it defines itself not as ARM64, but as CPU_V7.  I expect this to
> > >> change based on feedback from patch 1/2.
> > >>
> > >> The Aarch32 code runs on the same AEMv8 model as the Aarch64 code,
but
> > >> takes an extra per-core model launch parameter to switch the cores
into
> > >> Aarch32 mode, eg. "-C cluster0.cpu0.CONFIG64=0".
> > >
> > > So my first and slightly ignorant question is, why isn't this just a
new
> > > regular ARMv7 board being added rather than a special cased ARMv8?
> > >
> >
> > That's a valid question.
> >
> > I guess it could be either.  At the moment, it's a bit of both.
> > arch/arm/Kconfig says it's an ARMv7, but then it's added to
> > board/armltd/vexpress64/Kconfig to re-use vexpress_aemv8a.h.
> >
> > But there's no reason it couldn't be added to
> > board/armlt/vexpress/Kconfig and have a copy of vexpress_aemv8a.h that
> > isn't special cased at all.  That approach seems more copy/paste-y
> > than what I've done in this series, though.
> >
> > I think the whole setup for vexpress/vexpress64 and AEMv8/Juno is
> > confused.  Really, all of these armlt boards are the same with minor
> > variations, even if the minor variation could be ARMv7 vs ARMv8.
>
> Maybe this gets to the heart of the problem then, and we should
> re-structure and fix this.  If you look in board/raspberrypi/rpi/ we
> support rpi1 2 and 3, and that includes rpi3 in 64bit mode.  So if we
> want to re-work board/armlt/vexpress/ to support the various ways the
> base hardware can be (/ has been over the years), lets.  Does that sound
> like a plan?
>

Thanks, yes, it sounds like a great idea.  I haven't looked at the rpi
stuff yes, but I'll check it out next week.

I believe that would only resolve the issues in my 2nd patch, though.
Wouldn't the generic part of using an ARMv8 CPU with the ARMv7 code still
need addressing?  I guess reviewing the rpi3 code will tell me more.

> --
> Tom