[RFC PATCH 0/3] ARM: uncompress.h multi-platform enablement

[Domenico Andreoli]

On Wed, Sep 26, 2012 at 12:05:01PM +0000, Arnd Bergmann wrote:
> On Wednesday 26 September 2012, Russell King - ARM Linux wrote:
> > That rubbishes the idea of a single kernel though, which is to give
> > distros a single kernel image that they can boot on different ARM
> > platforms.
> > 
> > They want a single kernel binary that works everywhere, not one which
> > they need to select the right binary to work on platform X.  Yes, the
> > internal uncompressed bulk may be the same, but it would require
> > distros to carry around N different kernel images for N different
> > platforms.
> 
> Right. It still helps the distros ensure that they only have a single
> configuration and a single binary to test, which I expect is their main
> interest, but keeping multiple copies of the same binary with different
> headers is a bit silly, I agree.
> 
> On PowerPC, we have a similar problem, and the way that distros usually
> deal with that is to do the final link of the zImage from the post-install
> stage of their rpm or deb packages, depending on the platform they are
> on. In the same stage, they also link in the newly created initrd and
> the device tree blob if necessary.

Wouldn't help to have a sort of generic console driver in the decompressor
accepting some regs and masks provided by DT? This would fit most of the
uarts around, would be totally generic and multi-platform friendly.

Regards,
Domenico