[PATCH 14/25] arm: Remove sheevaplug board

[Tom Rini]

On Wed, Mar 24, 2021 at 09:11:01PM +0000, Harm Berntsen wrote:
> On Thu, 2021-02-11 at 15:06 -0500, Tom Rini wrote:
> > On Wed, Feb 10, 2021 at 09:09:56PM -0800, Rick Thomas wrote:
> > > 
> > > 
> > > On Wed, Feb 10, 2021, at 8:57 PM, Vagrant Cascadian wrote:
> > > > On 2021-02-10, Rick Thomas wrote:
> > > > > I have not recently (since before 2019) done anything more than
> > > > > allow
> > > > > aptitude to upgrade packages as it thinks best.  In particular, I
> > > > > have
> > > > > not made any attempt to burn new firmware on the device.
> > > > 
> > > > The debian u-boot packages do not automatically upgrade the u-boot
> > > > installed to the device; it requires manual intervention on the
> > > > part of
> > > > the system administrator above and beyond just upgrading the debian
> > > > packages through apt, aptitude, etc.
> > > > 
> > > > I think u-boot upstream is talking about dropping it for 2021.04,
> > > > so my
> > > > guess is you would still have another entire debian release cycle
> > > > with
> > > > the available 2021.01 version of u-boot *if* that version still
> > > > works...
> > > 
> > > If you can point me to instructions for doing that manual
> > > intervention, I'll be happy to test whatever version you recommend, 
> > > I
> > > hope the instructions also include how to recover if it *doesn't*
> > > work!
> > 
> > I think this unfortunately gets to the heart of the problem.  We need
> > someone that cares about the platform to step up and do the
> > maintenance.
> > Most of the work shouldn't be too hard and there's examples of many
> > previous conversions.  The mvsata_ide driver is probably the hardest
> > part but I think it just means that the ide_preinit() call needs to be
> > worked in to the new ide_probe() function rather than the old
> > ide_init().
> > 
> 
> I have just converted the MMC driver (mmc_mvebu) to the driver model
> and that works on my Kirkwood based board (not a sheevaplug though).
> I'll run it through my GitLab CI and submit it to the mailing list
> soon.
> 
> Would MMC support be enough to keep this board in U-Boot? If I
> understand Tom correctly the only non-DM driver is the IDE driver.
> Would it be an option to keep the Sheevaplug board without IDE support
> (unless someone submits a driver)? I do not own a Sheevaplug and thus I
> am not familiar with it. I suppose it could also boot from MMC.

I would really like to see someone be active in maintaining the
sheevaplug, especially given how popular it was among enthusiasts.  But
yes, if MMC is converted that does mean there's a viable path to keep
using a modern U-Boot on the system and I'll just rip out the IDE driver
until someone wants to convert that and test it.  USB will also need to
be converted soon too as I will start pulling out v2019.07 deadline
items for after v2021.07 release and that's both the IDE and USB
drivers.  But maybe both can be easily disabled.

-- 
Tom
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