Re: GSOC - Interested in making u-boot compilable on NetBSD

[Joe Davis <joe.davis512%gmail.com@localhost>]

> I am a bit confused about this step (and showing my ignorance) - what
> x86 systems are there that qemu can emulate and NetBSD support that are
> usefully bootable by u-boot?
>
> I would prefer to see concrete systems named here, or just skip this step
> (if it is not practically usefull).
>
> However, ignore this if it just shows my ignorance (but maybe add explanatory
> comments in that case).

I think I may skip this entirely, and go straight for ARM. It'll let
me get any issues with the toolchain out of the way as quickly as
possible, and I'd be far better off facing them at the beginning of
the project rather than in the middle.

At first I thought it might be useful for testing, as U-Boot can run
under EFI or as a coreboot payload, but with an emulator ARM is just
as easy in that regard.

>> >>  3. Reproducibly and reliably boot a full NetBSD system from a natively
>> >>     built U-Boot on a Beaglebone Black (ARMv7 system)
>> >>      - U-Boot is far more useful on architectures other than x86, and
>
> This is the main step that needs to happen. Please clarify "natively"
> here, as we have a mix of host/target machines here and I assume you
> mean something like "build a u-boot targetting arm on NetBSD/amd64 natively".

You're right, I should have clarified this. I meant that it would be
build on a (for example) NetBSD/amd64 host, targeting arm.

Ideally however, I'd like to be able to build it on an arm system as well

> This needs to be specified a bit more detailed - i.e. does it reach over
into $TOOLDIR/bin/* and uses those tools directly?

Yes, as the alternative would be building a separate cross compiler
purely for u-boot.

Thank you all for the feedback. I've had a busy week, so today was the
first time I had a chance to sit down and think this project through.
This led to a few problems in the first draft, so I'll try to get a
second clearer draft written tomorrow, that gives a better overview of
the work that will have to be done--for my own benefit as much as
anybody else's.

---
Joe