Re: [U-Boot] Sharing code between Linux and bootloader (U-boot) ?

From: Tom Rini
Date: Fri May 20 2016 - 21:42:13 EST


On Fri, May 20, 2016 at 04:28:23PM +0200, Sebastian Frias wrote:

> Hi,
>
> Some bootloaders (like U-boot) support several HW devices: serial,
> network, NAND, USB, etc. most of which are also supported by Linux.
>
> So the question is: is code shared? I mean, I understand that the
> drivers need to talk to the appropriate API, and such API could be
> different between Linux and U-boot.
> But putting that aside, would it be naive to imagine that some "core"
> functionality could be shared? Or would that part be so small it is
> not worth the effort?
>
> Since many companies use both, U-boot and Linux, I would figure they
> try their best to optimize engineering resources and share code,
> right?
> In that case, I also wonder how do they share DT descriptions that
> right now are being stored in the Linux kernel tree.
>
> We'd like to share code/DT for obvious reasons, what would you guys
> suggest?

So, in all cases, Linux is always the primary. In some cases in U-Boot
we port drivers over (NAND is a good example here). In other cases,
things are similar enough that it's having done it in one place it's
easy enough to do it again in the other.

--
Tom

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