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

[Tim Bird <tim.bird-mEdOJwZ7QcZBDgjK7y7TUQ@public.gmane.org>]

On 09/26/2012 03:44 AM, Russell King - ARM Linux wrote:
> On Wed, Sep 26, 2012 at 10:38:36AM +0000, Arnd Bergmann wrote:
>> On Tuesday 25 September 2012, Stephen Warren wrote:
>>>
>>> From: Stephen Warren <swarren-DDmLM1+adcrQT0dZR+AlfA@public.gmane.org>
>>>
>>> Tegra's uncompress and debug-macro.S communicate to each-other. Hence,
>>> we can't be left without uncompress.h in a multi-platform enabled kernel,
>>> or we'll lose features. This series allows uncompress.h to be used in a
>>> multi-platform kernel, restores the mvebu uncompress.h, and finally moves
>>> the Tegra debug macros into the common location. The series as mainly an
>>> RFC due to the outstanding question of where to put Tegra's <mach/iomap.h>
>>> in the final patch.
>>
>>
>> To follow up on the IRC discussion we had yesterday leading to this patch
>> set, I had another idea of how to handle the same: Since the decompressor
>> code is actually fairly separate from the kernel, we could also build
>> multiple versions of it, and link in the same compressed vmlinux.
> 
> 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.

Will those of us not interested in a single kernel binary
that works everywhere be able to configure an ARM kernel image
without a lot of bloat?
 -- Tim

=============================
Tim Bird
Architecture Group Chair, CE Workgroup of the Linux Foundation
Senior Staff Engineer, Sony Network Entertainment
=============================