Re: [PATCH 09/32] ARM: dts: omap3-gta04: make NAND partitions compatible with recent U-Boot

From: H. Nikolaus Schaller
Date: Wed Jul 25 2018 - 08:27:41 EST



> Am 25.07.2018 um 10:33 schrieb Ladislav Michl <ladis@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>:
>
> On Wed, Jul 25, 2018 at 10:18:28AM +0200, H. Nikolaus Schaller wrote:
>>
>>> Am 25.07.2018 um 10:07 schrieb Ladislav Michl <ladis@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>:
>>>
>>> On Wed, Jul 25, 2018 at 08:58:41AM +0200, H. Nikolaus Schaller wrote:
>>>> Vendor defined U-Boot has changed the partition scheme a while ago:
>>>>
>>>> * kernel partition 6MB
>>>> * file system partition uses the remainder up to end of the NAND
>>>> * increased size of the environment partition (to get an OneNAND compatible base address)
>>>> * shrink the U-Boot partition
>>>>
>>>> Let's be compatible (e.g. Debian kernel built from upstream).
>>>
>>> That, in fact, is breaking compatibility.
>>
>> With what? Nobody is using the old u-boot partition scheme any more
>> (it is >5 years old).
>>
>>> So once you are touching this
>>> what about relying on partitioning provided by bootloader just to prevent
>>> something like this happening again?
>>
>> Well, we define what compatible means here (since we are the vendor).
>> And people complain with us. We simply recommend them to upgrade the
>> boot-loader.
>
> Fair enough. Suggestion was to remove partitioning scheme from DTB alltogether
> and let U-Boot provide one. But you being vendor you decide, of course :)
> (I'd use only two partitions: MLO and UBI, latter one with BCH8, and store
> everything in UBI volumes. That's a bit more flexible approach)

Yes, that is a good goal for a future setup and would of course be better.
Like U-Boot already provides the memory layout for RAM.

Hopefully, someone will work out patches for u-boot plus kernel (which is always
painful to keep these two in sync and tested). But I don't want to do that now.

BR and thanks,
Nikolaus