[LEDE-DEV] QCA Dakota support

[Christian Lamparter]

Hi Christian,

On Wednesday, November 23, 2016 10:13:45 PM CET Christian Mehlis wrote:
> your current staging tree works for me, it generates an itb and a trx 
> file!
> I added some files to support the Compex board I own:
> https://github.com/mehlis/source/commits/compex-wpj428
> 
> Feel free to include some bits in your tree. I had to add dk04-c5 
> support, perhaps you know some other way?
> My commit is compile tested only.
I looked at it. But you need to consider what I previously wrote (in the
second to last mail?):

"the kernel devicetree maintainers frown upon "catch-all" compatible strings [0]."

This means that you have to replace all the generic "qcom,*ipq40xx*" with 
"qcom,*ipq4028*" in your dts and dtsi. Next, you have to add the bindings
to the kernel platform and driver code, so the device-tree will find the
driver for hardware definitions in your dtb. (Alternatively, you can
add the appropriate "qcom,*ipq4019*" binding)

> Please be more precise on the flashing steps. I would like to flash from 
> uboot. I never had a board running ubifs. QCA provides a img file, so 
> I'm a bit lost here.
I added an entry on how to boot the initramfs on the ASUS. And since that's
the only IPQ40XX device I have, I can only give "precise informations" for
it.

For the Asus RT-AC58U, it's very simple. During boot, you have this 1-2 Second
window to select the following option:

Please choose the operation: 
   1: Load System code to SDRAM via TFTP.
   2: Load System code then write to Flash via TFTP.
   3: Boot System code via Flash (default).
   4: Entr boot command line interface.
   7: Load Boot Loader code then write to Flash via Serial.
   9: Load Boot Loader code then write to Flash via TFTP.

And for the initramfs image. you just hit (1). It then continues to ask
about the IP, tftp server ip and tftp image name (obviously that's the
lede-ipq40xx-RT-AC58U-initramfs-fit-uImage.itb file in the tftp's server
directory). and that's it: it automatically boots.

Note: Currently, a working flash image is not implemented. But, you don't
need to flash the image in order to test it. The initramfs image is simply
loaded into the SDRAM and it boots from there. (The rootfs is part
of the initramfs image). Using initramfs is much better for development,
since you don't need to wait it to flash (The SPINAND is very slow and
also you'll burn through the NAND quite quickly)

Regards,
	Christian

[0] <https://patchwork.kernel.org/patch/7062591/>

BTW: If you have any questions, you can also find me on google hangouts
(with the same gmail). Note: If you have an "unusual mail/nick"* there,
just let me know beforehand via email as I tend to ignore unknown 
requests :-) )

* not something that resembles your name.