[U-Boot] [PATCH 0/9] Switch bcm283x platform to use OF_CONTROL

[Fabian Vogt]

Hi,

Am Mittwoch, 5. Oktober 2016, 09:54:46 CEST schrieb Stephen Warren:
> On 09/26/2016 06:26 AM, Fabian Vogt wrote:
> > This patch series modifies the used drivers to work with OF_CONTROL
> > and switches the board code and configs to use it.
> > The added device trees are directly from the linux kernel tree
> > and can thus be used for booting the (upstream) kernel.
> 
> Is there a user-visible or developer-visible benefit to this change? In 
> general, converting to use DT to instantiate devices simply ends up 
> using more code (and hence complexity and time) to get to the exact same 
> state afterwards.

There are various reasons, like:

- The device tree describes the platform, so it can also be used by the
  linux kernel for configuration (no separate dtb needed)
- Properties are not hardcoded in the u-boot code
- Slightly different hardware deviations do not require significant code
  changes (like #ifdef or even new platdatas), just a new dts and Kconfig
  adjustments

It's also mentioned in Simon Glass's talk about DM:
https://events.linuxfoundation.org/sites/events/files/slides/Order%20at%20last%20-%20U-Boot%20driver%20model%20slides%20(2).pdf