[U-Boot] SPARC support

[U-Boot] SPARC support

[Travis Waters]

Hi All!


For several years, my organization has built and maintained boards SPARCH-architecture processors (specifically Gaisler's implementation of the LEON3), and we have depended on u-boot as our primary bootloader.  But when attempting to update u-boot this morning, we were disappointed to find that the SPARC support was completely removed last March with commits:


936478e797a87bcd4e002bf70430b6f58584b155

54f302f1197a490c2c4e3564c698ecd090d5013b


What was the reasoning for completely removing support for SPARC?  What will it take to get it back in?


Thanks!

-Travis Waters

[U-Boot] SPARC support

[Tom Rini]

On Mon, Feb 12, 2018 at 07:28:14PM +0000, Travis Waters wrote:
> Hi All!
> 
> 
> For several years, my organization has built and maintained boards
> SPARCH-architecture processors (specifically Gaisler's implementation
> of the LEON3), and we have depended on u-boot as our primary
> bootloader.  But when attempting to update u-boot this morning, we
> were disappointed to find that the SPARC support was completely
> removed last March with commits:
> 
> 
> 936478e797a87bcd4e002bf70430b6f58584b155
> 
> 54f302f1197a490c2c4e3564c698ecd090d5013b
> 
> 
> What was the reasoning for completely removing support for SPARC?
> What will it take to get it back in?

It was removed due to a lack of active maintainers.  Last year when I
removed it, I know a few people reached out to other groups in private
to see if anyone wanted to maintain it, and no one stood up.  I would be
happy to have SPARC re-introduced, so long as:
- It builds with a modern toolchain such as
  https://www.kernel.org/pub/tools/crosstool/files/bin/x86_64/6.4.0/ or
  https://www.kernel.org/pub/tools/crosstool/files/bin/x86_64/7.3.0/
- It does not add anything to scripts/config_whitelist.txt
- Someone is going to be active in maintaining the port and doing the
  driver conversions to DM as they need to be done.
- A real nice bonus would be hooking up QEMU and Travis-CI and test.py
  so that a basic level of functionality can be confirmed and tested
  every time.

Thanks!

-- 
Tom
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[U-Boot] SPARC support

[Travis Waters]

Thanks for the update, Tom.
I think those are all fair assertions.  Was Gaisler ever approached as a maintainer, or have they just been unable to keep up?  We will approach Gaisler again and find out what's going on with their side.  We certainly have a vested interest in it so I may be able to talk the powers-that-be into maintaining if Gaisler won't commit.

-Travis

-----Original Message-----
From: Tom Rini [mailto:trini at konsulko.com] 
Sent: Monday, February 12, 2018 1:16 PM
To: Travis Waters <Travis.Waters@sdl.usu.edu>
Cc: u-boot at lists.denx.de
Subject: Re: [U-Boot] SPARC support

On Mon, Feb 12, 2018 at 07:28:14PM +0000, Travis Waters wrote:
> Hi All!
> 
> 
> For several years, my organization has built and maintained boards 
> SPARCH-architecture processors (specifically Gaisler's implementation 
> of the LEON3), and we have depended on u-boot as our primary 
> bootloader.  But when attempting to update u-boot this morning, we 
> were disappointed to find that the SPARC support was completely 
> removed last March with commits:
> 
> 
> 936478e797a87bcd4e002bf70430b6f58584b155
> 
> 54f302f1197a490c2c4e3564c698ecd090d5013b
> 
> 
> What was the reasoning for completely removing support for SPARC?
> What will it take to get it back in?

It was removed due to a lack of active maintainers.  Last year when I removed it, I know a few people reached out to other groups in private to see if anyone wanted to maintain it, and no one stood up.  I would be happy to have SPARC re-introduced, so long as:
- It builds with a modern toolchain such as
  https://www.kernel.org/pub/tools/crosstool/files/bin/x86_64/6.4.0/ or
  https://www.kernel.org/pub/tools/crosstool/files/bin/x86_64/7.3.0/
- It does not add anything to scripts/config_whitelist.txt
- Someone is going to be active in maintaining the port and doing the
  driver conversions to DM as they need to be done.
- A real nice bonus would be hooking up QEMU and Travis-CI and test.py
  so that a basic level of functionality can be confirmed and tested
  every time.

Thanks!

--
Tom

[U-Boot] SPARC support

[Tom Rini]

On Mon, Feb 12, 2018 at 08:40:44PM +0000, Travis Waters wrote:

> Thanks for the update, Tom.
> I think those are all fair assertions.  Was Gaisler ever approached as
> a maintainer, or have they just been unable to keep up?  We will
> approach Gaisler again and find out what's going on with their side.
> We certainly have a vested interest in it so I may be able to talk the
> powers-that-be into maintaining if Gaisler won't commit.

I believe that in the end I simply never got a reply from the previous
maintainers, one of whom was at Gaisler and one at Spaceteq.  Thanks!

-- 
Tom
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