From owner-freebsd-hackers@FreeBSD.ORG Thu Nov 16 18:35:36 2006 Return-Path: X-Original-To: freebsd-hackers@freebsd.org Delivered-To: freebsd-hackers@freebsd.org Received: from mx1.FreeBSD.org (mx1.freebsd.org [216.136.204.125]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 6A52D16A4B3 for ; Thu, 16 Nov 2006 18:35:36 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from raj@semihalf.com) Received: from mail.semihalf.com (mail.semihalf.com [62.233.211.107]) by mx1.FreeBSD.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 61D9D43D45 for ; Thu, 16 Nov 2006 18:35:35 +0000 (GMT) (envelope-from raj@semihalf.com) Received: from localhost (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by mail.semihalf.com (Postfix) with ESMTP id 03ED614361; Thu, 16 Nov 2006 19:35:33 +0100 (CET) Received: from mail.semihalf.com ([127.0.0.1]) by localhost (mail.semihalf.com [127.0.0.1]) (amavisd-new, port 10024) with ESMTP id 12686-01; Thu, 16 Nov 2006 19:35:31 +0100 (CET) Message-ID: <455CAF73.9060808@semihalf.com> Date: Thu, 16 Nov 2006 19:35:31 +0100 From: Rafal Jaworowski MIME-Version: 1.0 To: Gary Jennejohn References: <200611161805.kAGI5w9b013112@peedub.jennejohn.org> In-Reply-To: <200611161805.kAGI5w9b013112@peedub.jennejohn.org> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-2; format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Virus-Scanned: by amavisd-new at semihalf.com Cc: Aditya Godbole , freebsd-hackers@freebsd.org Subject: FreeBSD and U-Boot -- was: Ramdisk support X-BeenThere: freebsd-hackers@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.5 Precedence: list List-Id: Technical Discussions relating to FreeBSD List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Thu, 16 Nov 2006 18:35:36 -0000 Gary Jennejohn wrote: > > u-boot is unfortuately extremely Linux-centric. I work closely with the > person who "invented" u-boot, Wolfgang Denk, and know that he'd just love > to see the *BSD support improved. > > Unfortunately, u-boot makes heavy use of Linux' support for rootdev, etc., > which AFAIK is missing in FreeBSD. It heavily depends on passing lots of > necessary information in the Linux command line to influence the boot > process. > Hi Gary, we have working patches for U-Boot that extend 'bootm' to recognize and handle parsing FreeBSD/powerpc ELF image and passing control to it; among others these compose FreeBSD-style metadata, the goal is aldo to convert some U-Boot env vars to FreeBSD kenv equivalents etc. but it's not fully supported yet. On a related note - we are having a discussion on freebsd-ppc list towards setting the common convention for registers' usage etc. so we can handle booting PowerPC kernel from different bootloaders (it's strictly OF/Mac oriented now). Once this is agreed and prototyped/tested the changes will by contributed to U-Boot (I'm sure, too, Wolfgang will be glad to see those;) kind regards, Rafal