[RFC] new board VoCore2

[Stefan Roese]

Hi Mauro,

On 15.12.19 11:20, Mauro Condarelli wrote:
> I am trying to extend support to a new board "VoCore2" whose specs can
> be found here: https://vocore.io/v2.html

Nice. Thanks for working on this.

> Port is concerning the "ultimate" board which has all connectors in
> place for SD, USB and Ethernet.
> This board comes with a paleolithic (1.3.0) version of u-boot and I'm
> trying to upgrade to a recent one
> also because I need to implement "automatic upgrade" (possibly using
> RAUC, but that is another story).
> 
> Port is working and able to boot Linuz, but it is not ready for
> inclusion for several reasons
> and I would like to have expert advice on how to tackle shortcomings, as
> advised by stefanro on IRC:
>> 6:49:14 AM - stefanro: mcon: Please submit the patches directly to the
>> list, with me (and other MIPS / MT7628/88 experts - Daniel etc) on Cc.
>> If you feel the patches are not ready for integration, then you can
>> mark them as "RFC" in the subject.
> 
> Problematic areas I see (side from possible code style issues) are:
> 1) I added support for a new SPI NOR Flash and that should, probably, be
> a separate patch.

Yes, please.

> 2) I added support for SPI NOR partitioning and I'm unsure if that
> should be in the "board definition".
> 3) SPI NOR partitioning is actually duplicated in ENV var (mtdparts) and
> in Device Tree; I didn't find how to read it directly from DT.

When you pass the MTD partitioning via kernel cmdline "mtdparts=...",
which can be generated by U-Boot, then there is no need for the DT
partitioning.

> 4) Board also has SD, handled via MTK_SD driver, but I've been unable to
> make it work.

Then I suggest to exclude it for now.

> 5) Current binary is rather big and I would like to shrink it a bit, if
> possible.
> 
> Any hint/criticism/advice would be VERY welcome.

The most important comment I have is, please post the patch inline, so that
we can easily comment on it. Please also take a look at this page for hints
about patch submission:

http://www.denx.de/wiki/view/U-Boot/Patches

Thanks,
Stefan