Re: [9fans] ARM and u-boot

[Steven Stallion <sstallion@gmail.com>]

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On Mon, Jun 3, 2013 at 6:19 AM, erik quanstrom <quanstro@quanstro.net>wrote:

> unfortunately, as far as i know plan 9 can't be used as a primary
> loader most of the environments where uboot is used because
> we haven't written the (usually small) memory initialization code, etc.
>

It's more than that. Many board vendors will use a secured stage 1
bootloader that assumes U-Boot. It's probably possible to shove in a
different second stage loader, but you'll still need to do board
initialization as you mentioned. It's not that onerous and there is source
out there, but I think it's really a question of motivation. U-Boot is
supported by the same vendors and covers of the behavior you will likely
want in a boot loader (and then some). Board configs are easy to customize
so that you aren't carrying around a massive binary. The binary I use for
the Arndale is measured in kilobytes, not megabytes.

Every SoC is going to have a different process - in the end, you'll have
something that will probably look quite a bit like U-Boot without any real
benefit. I'd rather tilt at other windmills...

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