[PATCH 00/16] fdt: Make OF_BOARD a boolean option

[François Ozog]

Le mer. 13 oct. 2021 à 20:06, Simon Glass <sjg at chromium.org> a écrit :

> Hi François,
>
> On Wed, 13 Oct 2021 at 11:35, François Ozog <francois.ozog at linaro.org>
> wrote:
> >
> > Hi Simon
> >
> > Le mer. 13 oct. 2021 à 16:49, Simon Glass <sjg at chromium.org> a écrit :
> >>
> >> Hi Tom, Bin,François,
> >>
> >> On Tue, 12 Oct 2021 at 19:34, Tom Rini <trini at konsulko.com> wrote:
> >> >
> >> > On Wed, Oct 13, 2021 at 09:29:14AM +0800, Bin Meng wrote:
> >> > > Hi Simon,
> >> > >
> >> > > On Wed, Oct 13, 2021 at 9:01 AM Simon Glass <sjg at chromium.org>
> wrote:
> >> > > >
> >> > > > With Ilias' efforts we have dropped OF_PRIOR_STAGE and
> OF_HOSTFILE so
> >> > > > there are only three ways to obtain a devicetree:
> >> > > >
> >> > > >    - OF_SEPARATE - the normal way, where the devicetree is built
> and
> >> > > >       appended to U-Boot
> >> > > >    - OF_EMBED - for development purposes, the devicetree is
> embedded in
> >> > > >       the ELF file (also used for EFI)
> >> > > >    - OF_BOARD - the board figures it out on its own
> >> > > >
> >> > > > The last one is currently set up so that no devicetree is needed
> at all
> >> > > > in the U-Boot tree. Most boards do provide one, but some don't.
> Some
> >> > > > don't even provide instructions on how to boot on the board.
> >> > > >
> >> > > > The problems with this approach are documented at [1].
> >> > > >
> >> > > > In practice, OF_BOARD is not really distinct from OF_SEPARATE.
> Any board
> >> > > > can obtain its devicetree at runtime, even it is has a devicetree
> built
> >> > > > in U-Boot. This is because U-Boot may be a second-stage
> bootloader and its
> >> > > > caller may have a better idea about the hardware available in the
> machine.
> >> > > > This is the case with a few QEMU boards, for example.
> >> > > >
> >> > > > So it makes no sense to have OF_BOARD as a 'choice'. It should be
> an
> >> > > > option, available with either OF_SEPARATE or OF_EMBED.
> >> > > >
> >> > > > This series makes this change, adding various missing devicetree
> files
> >> > > > (and placeholders) to make the build work.
> >> > >
> >> > > Adding device trees that are never used sounds like a hack to me.
> >> > >
> >> > > For QEMU, device tree is dynamically generated on the fly based on
> >> > > command line parameters, and the device tree you put in this series
> >> > > has various hardcoded <phandle> values which normally do not show up
> >> > > in hand-written dts files.
> >> > >
> >> > > I am not sure I understand the whole point of this.
> >> >
> >> > I am also confused and do not like the idea of adding device trees for
> >> > platforms that are capable of and can / do have a device tree to give
> us
> >> > at run time.
> >>
> >> (I'll just reply to this one email, since the same points applies to
> >> all replies I think)
> >>
> >> I have been thinking about this and discussing it with people for a
> >> few months now. I've been signalling a change like this for over a
> >> month now, on U-Boot contributor calls and in discussions with Linaro
> >> people. I sent a patch (below) to try to explain things. I hope it is
> >> not a surprise!
> >>
> >> The issue here is that we need a devicetree in-tree in U-Boot, to
> >> avoid the mess that has been created by OF_PRIOR_STAGE, OF_BOARD,
> >> BINMAN_STANDALONE_FDT and to a lesser extent, OF_HOSTFILE. Between
> >> Ilias' series and this one we can get ourselves on a stronger footing.
> >> There is just OF_SEPARATE, with OF_EMBED for debugging/ELF use.
> >> For more context:
> >>
> >>
> http://patchwork.ozlabs.org/project/uboot/patch/20210919215111.3830278-3-sjg@chromium.org/
> >>
> >> BTW I did suggest to QEMU ARM that they support a way of adding the
> >> u-boot.dtsi but there was not much interest there (in fact the
> >> maintainer would prefer there was no special support even for booting
> >> Linux directly!)
> >
> > i understand their point of view and agree with it.
> >>
> >> But in any case it doesn't really help U-Boot. I
> >> think the path forward might be to run QEMU twice, once to get its
> >> generated tree and once to give the 'merged' tree with the U-Boot
> >> properties in it, if people want to use U-Boot features.
> >>
> >> I do strongly believe that OF_BOARD must be a run-time option, not a
> >> build-time one. It creates all sorts of problems and obscurity which
> >> have taken months to unpick. See the above patch for the rationale.
> >>
> >> To add to that rationale, OF_BOARD needs to be an option available to
> >> any board. At some point in the future it may become a common way
> >> things are done, e.g. TF-A calling U-Boot and providing a devicetree
> >> to it. It doesn't make any sense to have people decide whether or not
> >> to set OF_BOARD at build time, thus affecting how the image is put
> >> together. We'll end up with different U-Boot build targets like
> >> capricorn, capricorn_of_board and the like. It should be obvious where
> >> that will lead. Instead, OF_BOARD needs to become a commonly used
> >> option, perhaps enabled by most/all boards, so that this sort of build
> >> explosion is not needed.
> >
> > If you mean that when boards are by construction providing a DTB to
> U-Boot then I agree very much. But I don’t understand how the patch set
> supports it as it puts dts files for those boards to be built.
> >>
> >> U-Boot needs to be flexible enough to
> >> function correctly in whatever runtime environment in which it finds
> >> itself.
> >>
> >> Also as binman is pressed into service more and more to build the
> >> complex firmware images that are becoming fashionable, it needs a
> >> definition (in the devicetree) that describes how to create the image.
> >> We can't support that unless we are building a devicetree, nor can the
> >> running program access the image layout without that information.
> >>
> >> François's point about 'don't use this with any kernel' is
> >> germane...but of course I am not suggesting doing that, since OF_BOARD
> >> is, still, enabled. We already use OF_BOARD for various boards that
> >> include an in-tree devicetree - Raspberry Pi 1, 2 and 3, for example
> >> (as I said in the cover letter "Most boards do provide one, but some
> >> don't."). So this series is just completing the picture by enforcing
> >> that *some sort* of devicetree is always present.
> >
> > That seems inconsistent with the OF_BOARD becomes the default.
>
> I think the key point that will get you closer to where I am on this
> issue, is that OF_BOARD needs to be a run-time option. At present it
> has build-time effects and this is quite wrong.

Doesn’t that mean that the current build system is not fully supporting
boards that do provide the DT and you try to hack your way in ? As I
replied to Tom, I could accept temporarily a void.dts containing nothing to
actually uallly pass any build problem until we properly fix the build
system.
(But no “close to real” fake dts in the dts section)

> If you go through all
> the material I have written on this I think I have motivated that very
> clearly.
>
> Another big issue is that I believe we need ONE devicetree for U-Boot,
> not two that get merged by U-Boot. Again I have gone through that in a
> lot of detail.
>
i know but a number of people do not agree with your position. U-Boot can
leverage many DTs coming from hats and capes to finalize the DT it passes
to OS. It can also leverage a file, a FIP section (NT_FW_CONFIG in TFA) a
FIT section formatted as FDT for its own configuration.

>
> >>
> >>
> >> I can't quite pinpoint the patch where U-Boot started allowing the
> >> devicetree to be omitted, but if people are interested I could try a
> >> little harder. It was certainly not my intention (putting on my
> >> device-tree-maintainer hat) to go down that path and it slipped in
> >> somehow in all the confusion. I'm not sure anyone could tell you that
> >> rpi_3 has an in-tree devicetree but rpi_4 does not...
> >>
> >> Anyway this series is very modest. It just adds the requirement that
> >> all in-tree boards have some sort of sample devicetree and preferably
> >> some documentation as to where it might come from at runtime.
> >
> > That’s a very good goal. But adding files in dts make them not samples
> but templates to be used and replace board provided DTB.
> > If you push all your DTS files in documentation, you do what you say:
> adding sample files.
> >>
> >> That
> >> should not be a tough call IMO. Assuming we can get the validation in
> >> place (mentioned by Rob Herring recently) it will be quite natural to
> >> sync them between (presumably) Linux and U-Boot.
> >>
> >> I am also quite happy to discuss what should actually be in these
> >> devicetree files and whether some of them should be essentially empty.
> >> As you probably noticed, some of them are empty since I literally
> >> could not figure out where they come from! But there needs to be at
> >> least some skeleton for U-Boot to progress, since devicetree is
> >> critical to its feature set.
> >
> > absolutely. And thank you for your efforts to make that center stage.
> This is also Linaro Edge group mist challenging  task on the next 6 moths.
> Knowing that we have lived in a floating situation for over 10 years, I
> just hope we get consensus across projects and distro providers about the
> right end goal and migration strategy.
> >>
>
> Thank you.
>
> >>
> >>
> >> It is high time we tidied all this up. I predict it will be much
> >> harder, and much more confusing, in 6 months.
>
> Just to set a road map here in case you can help unblock anything,
> here are the things I am aware of, excluding the things I have
> forgotten:
>
> - Ilias OF_PRIOR_STAGE, OF_HOSTFILE series
> - this series
> - the devicetree docs patch
> - devicetree bindings upstream for U-Boot (first patch under discussion)
> - bloblist as a means of passing devicetree, ACPI, tiny config info as

the “ABI” of U-Boot entry need more specification. Having something close
to Linux helped to get U-Boot in the RPI4 and other boards I believe. So we
could start from here. The blob list may be an extra arg (x0=DTB,
x1=bloblist in Arm).

>
> C structs to U-Boot (needs to be written)
> - VPL so we can handle verification (patches pending)
> - bootflow / VBE v2 series (coming next week)
>
> Regards,
> Simon
>
-- 
François-Frédéric Ozog | *Director Business Development*
T: +33.67221.6485
francois.ozog at linaro.org | Skype: ffozog