Re: Novena update; armhf flavor for i.MX6
On Thu, 2013-02-07 at 23:03 +0100, Arnaud Patard wrote:
> Ian Campbell <ijc@hellion.org.uk> writes:
>
> > On Mon, 2013-02-04 at 00:29 +0000, bnewbold@robocracy.org wrote:
> >> Hello again debian-kernel!
> >>
> >> I wrote to this list in December[0] regarding the Novena open hardware
> >> laptop project[1]; there is now a Debian porting wiki page here:
> >>
> >> http://www.kosagi.com/w/index.php?title=Novena/Debian
> >>
> >> I met Ben H and bunnie in late December, and then had access to a
> >> development board again a week ago. I was able to build and boot an SD
> >> card image using a mainline linux kernel (clean ~3.8 kernel.org checkout
> >> with custom defconfig), a custom u-boot, and wheezy armhf rootfs
> >> (instructions at [2]).
> >
> > I don't see any mention of Novena in the mainline git logs. I also took
> > a look in some of the likely looking arm-soc branches. Perhaps I'm just
> > looking for the wrong keywords? Or maybe with all the DT stuff no Novena
> > specific patches were required?
>
> imx6 is nowadays DT only. Fsl devs are testing only on DT so trying to
> support imx6 on non-DT setup will likely leads to troubles. If one
> looks at the imx6 related dts file in mainline, afaik there's only
> sabrelite devices. So, this probably means that some work is needed to get
> Novena hardware support in mainline.
Bryan's instructions at [0] seem to suggest that mainline 3.8-rcFOO plus
a custom DTB are all that is required for basic functionality, although
he does say that some peripherals (e.g. SATA) aren't supported yet.
Getting the DTB which supports the current basic functionality into
upstream doesn't sound to hard and then it would seem reasonable to take
that DTB into Debian while the upstream work for the other peripherals
is on going.
[0] http://www.kosagi.com/w/index.php?title=Novena/DebianBuildProcess
> >
> >> It sounds like there has been talk of a unified i.mx5 and i.mx6 armhf
> >> debian kernel flavor (something like '-mx'),
> >
> > I wonder if we have now reached the point with all the upstream single
> > image work where we could have a single flavour for armhf? i.e. a single
> > generic flavour not -mx (or maybe two, regular and lpae).
>
> There's still some work needed. Some devices (imx5/omap) have not yet been
> converted into DT.
So it sounds like we should have a new generic DT flavour, containing
imx6 support (and any other platforms which are ready), and leave the
existing imx5/omap flavours alone, as opposed to adding imx6 to the imx5
flavour and renaming it to -imx.
Over time most new stuff should be added to the generic flavour and
things can migrate from the others as they become ready.
> > Even if we can't do that right now I'd have thought it ought to be
> > doable by the time we freeze for jessie.
> >
>
> I think that having a omap/mvebu/imx/... multiplatform kernel for jessie
> is possible but clearly not for wheezy.
Agreed, I assume the Wheezy flavours are pretty much fixed by this stage
in the freeze?
I'm not sure if Bryan is interested in Wheezy anyhow, since it is 3.2
kernel I would imagine a fair bit of backporting would be needed, it's a
bit of a different conversation to this one I think, we'd need to start
by someone identifying the list of changes which would need backporting.
> I'm also not sure we'll be able to drop non-DT armhf kernels soon.
Those are just the imx5 and omap flavours?
> At least every new platform should be supported with DT.
Yes, that sounds reasonable.
> > As I say above we may not need a new flavour at all, but if you did
> > you'd be looking first at modifying debian/config/armf/defines and
> > debian/config/armhf/config.flavour. Other potentially interesting places
> > would be debian/installer/armhf.
>
> If we have a new flavour, it should be a multiplatform one imho. In the
> case of IMX6, there's no real point to create a new flavor if it's not
> to make a multiplatform kernel. It's already possible to build a kernel
> with mx5 and mx6 support iirc.
Agreed.
Ian.
--
Ian Campbell
Current Noise: Rush - Finding My Way
I'll see you... on the dark side of the moon...
-- Pink Floyd
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