[U-Boot] [PATCH v4 0/16] sunxi: Add support for the CHIP Pro

[Jagan Teki]

On Mon, Jan 23, 2017 at 7:16 PM, Maxime Ripard
<maxime.ripard at free-electrons.com> wrote:
> The CHIP Pro is a SoM made by NextThing Co, and that embeds a GR8 SIP, an
> AXP209 PMIC, a WiFi BT chip and a 512MB SLC NAND.
>
> Since the first Allwinner device coming whit an SLC NAND that doesn't have
> the shortcomings (and breakages) the MLC NAND has, we can finally enable
> the NAND support on a board by default.
>
> This is the occasion to introduce a bunch of additions needed imo to be
> able to come up with a sane NAND support for our users.
>
> The biggest pain point is that the BROM uses a different ECC and randomizer
> configuration than for the rest of the NAND. In order to lessen the number
> of bitflips, you also need to pad with random data the SPL image.
>
> Since it's quite tedious to do right (and most users won't be able to
> figure it out) and since if it is not done right, it will eventually turn
> into an unusable system (which is bad UX), we think that the best solution
> is to generate an SPL image that already embeds all this. We'll possible
> have to do the same thing for the U-Boot image (at least for the random
> padding) on MLC NANDs.
>
> The only drawback from that is that you need to flash it raw, instead of
> using the usual nand write, but it's just a different command, nothing
> major anyway.
>
> In order to flash it, from a device switched in FEL, on your host:
> sunxi-fel spl spl/sunxi-spl.bin
> sunxi-fel write 0x4a000000 u-boot-dtb.bin
> sunxi-fel write 0x43000000 spl/sunxi-spl-with-ecc.bin
> sunxi-fel exe 0x4a000000
>
> And on the board, once u-boot is running (assuming the NAND is already
> erased):
>
> nand write.raw.noverify 0x43000000 0 40
> nand write.raw.noverify 0x43000000 0x400000 40
>
> nand write 0x4a000000 0x800000 0xc0000
>
> I also encountered some weird bug in the private libgcc that prevents
> U-Boot from loading. Disabling CONFIG_USE_PRIVATE_LIBGCC fixes that.
>
> Let me know what you think,
> Maxime
>
> Changes from v3:
>   - Bring new Kconfig patches from Boris
>   - Do not define Kconfig defaults in our board Kconfig but directly in the
>     option declaration
>   - Sync the DT with the kernel
>   - Fixed build breakages
>
> Changes from v2:
>   - Move CMD_NAND and CMD_UBI default to cmd/Kconfig
>   - Define the env Kconfig options only for ARCH_SUNXI to avoid build
>     breakages
>   - Define CMD_MTDPARTS only for ARCH_SUNXI
>
> Changes from v1:
>   - Allowed to build lib/bch.c for the host, and used that in the image
>     builder
>   - Fixed a bug in the NAND driver
>   - Wrote a documentation on how to flash a NAND image on an Allwinner
>     board
>   - Fixed a few compilation breakages and issues
>   - Moved U-boot offset out of the config header and into Kconfig
>   - Moved the environment into UBI
>   - Moved the environment selection to Kconfig
>   - Moved the CMD_MTDPARTS options to Kconfig
>   - Provide MTDIDS_DEFAULT and MTDPARTS_DEFAULT options through Kconfig
>   - Added the tags from everyone
>
> Boris Brezillon (3):
>   mtd: ubi: Select RBTREE option from MTD_UBI Kconfig entry
>   cmd: Expose a Kconfig option to enable UBIFS commands
>   cmd: nand: Expose optional suboptions in Kconfig
>
> Hans de Goede (1):
>   sunxi: Enable UBI and NAND support
>
> Maxime Ripard (12):
>   nand: sunxi: Fix modulo by zero error
>   bch: Allow to build for the host
>   tools: sunxi: Add spl image builder
>   common: Move environment choice to Kconfig
>   cmd: Add Kconfig option for CMD_MTDPARTS and related options
>   mtd: sunxi: Select the U-Boot location config option
>   mtd: sunxi: Change U-Boot offset
>   sunxi: Add the default mtdids and mtdparts to our env
>   nand: sunxi: Add options for the SPL NAND configuration
>   scripts: sunxi: Build an raw SPL image
>   sunxi: Sync GR8 DTS and AXP209 with the kernel
>   sunxi: Add support for the CHIP Pro

Reviewed-by: Jagan Teki <jagan at openedev.com>

thanks!
-- 
Jagan Teki
Free Software Engineer | www.openedev.com
U-Boot, Linux | Upstream Maintainer
Hyderabad, India.