[LEDE-DEV] Convert ar71xx to devicetree

[Felix Fietkau]

On 2016-12-08 18:08, John Crispin wrote:
> 
> 
> On 08/12/2016 18:06, Felix Fietkau wrote:
>> On 2016-12-08 17:31, John Crispin wrote:
>>> Hi,
>>>
>>> i was planning to start working on this in early 2017. i was hoping that
>>> rather than converting ar71xx to DT we simply create a new target called
>>> ath79 and start moving board support over from the legacy to the new
>>> target. this would allow us to make the ath79 target much cleaner than
>>> having to worry about legacy cruft.
>>>
>>> converting all the mach files to dts files is also a bit tricky. back in
>>> the day when i converted ramips, i simply create a host lib that
>>> provided all the platform_*() callbacks used by the mach files. however
>>> rather than register anything the code simply generated the matching dts
>>> files. this was really ugly, run once and throw away code.
>>>
>>> can you share the patches you have already created ? i think we could
>>> start working on this now and once the new ath79 target starts to be
>>> usable we simply refuse to merge patches to ar71xx and only accept ones
>>> for ath79
>> I think making this a separate target will make the transition period a
>> lot more confusing for users. I think it should not be too hard to
>> support both DT and non-DT devices with the same kernel.
>> 
>> I fully agree with refusing to accept non-DT device support once a few
>> devices work with DT.
>> 
>> - Felix
>> 
> 
> how would that be confusing ? i would argue the exact opposite
Because suddenly there are two targets and you have to look up which
device is supported by which target.

- Felix