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From: Sean Anderson <seanga2@gmail.com>
To: Damien Le Moal <Damien.LeMoal@wdc.com>,
	Anup Patel <Anup.Patel@wdc.com>,
	Palmer Dabbelt <palmer@dabbelt.com>
Cc: "linux-riscv@lists.infradead.org"
	<linux-riscv@lists.infradead.org>,
	Paul Walmsley <paul.walmsley@sifive.com>
Subject: Re: [PATCH 04/10] riscv: Add BUILTIN_DTB support
Date: Fri, 6 Mar 2020 18:56:50 -0500	[thread overview]
Message-ID: <8dd085fe-6c96-e31f-4962-d204594211a1@gmail.com> (raw)
In-Reply-To: <BYAPR04MB5816059C01B77CE5D7E02E40E7E20@BYAPR04MB5816.namprd04.prod.outlook.com>

On 3/5/20 12:14 AM, Damien Le Moal wrote:
> On 2020/03/05 13:58, Anup Patel wrote:
>>
>>
>>> -----Original Message-----
>>> From: Palmer Dabbelt <palmer@dabbelt.com>
>>> Sent: 05 March 2020 00:59
>>> To: Damien Le Moal <Damien.LeMoal@wdc.com>
>>> Cc: linux-riscv@lists.infradead.org; Paul Walmsley
>>> <paul.walmsley@sifive.com>; Anup Patel <Anup.Patel@wdc.com>
>>> Subject: Re: [PATCH 04/10] riscv: Add BUILTIN_DTB support
>>>
>>> On Wed, 12 Feb 2020 02:34:26 PST (-0800), Damien Le Moal wrote:
>>>> Enable a kernel builtin dtb for boards not capable of providing a
>>>> device tree to the kernel.
>>>
>>> I'd prefer if we picked a mechanism that allows a single kernel binary to be
>>> run on multiple systems.  I think there's two use cases here:
>>
>> I strongly support "single kernel binary for multiple systems" but it's for
>> different purpose here.
>>
>>>
>>> * Bootloaders that provide no DTB at all.
>>> * Bootloaders that provied a DTB that, for some reason, isn't usable.
> 
> Sure, but as Anup mentions below, the current use case it to not even use any
> bootloader at all for the K210 since that brings no value at all (in my
> opinion). More on this below.
> 
>>>
>>> Given those constraints, could we do something similar to the early fixups?
>>> I'm thinking we could build a mapping between a hardware identifier and a
>>> DTB, then look up the DTB we want to use.  Users that want a kernel that
>>> only runs on a single device can do so by configuring only a single DTB, users
>>> that want a more portable kernel can select a bunch -- that's essentially the
>>> same as how we're treating everything else (for example, the
>>> CONFIG_SOC_* stuff).
>>
>> There is no bootloader on Kendryte K210. The Linux RISC-V NOMMU kernel
>> boots directly. The BUILTIN_DTB is only applicable to cases where there is
>> no bootloader before kernel.
>>
>> The Linux RISC-V NOMMU will tend be used in cases where:
>> 1. There is no bootloader and kernel boots directly hence we need
>> builtin DTB feature.
>> 2. There is very less RAM so we will have to build kernel specific to
>> a particular platform with bare minimum drivers. Due to this, we will
>> have separate defconfig for NOMMU platforms.
>>
>> I think point1 can be tackled if we enforce having bootloader (such as U-Boot)
>> for NOMMU systems and drop this patch.
> 
> But that would go against point 2 as that will use more memory... By "drop this
> patch", may be you meant to say "not use this config option" ?
> 
>> For point2 above, we don't have much alternatives other than reducing
>> kernel binary size by disabling unwanted drivers.
> 
> And not using a boot loader. Sean got U-boot working with Kendryte, so it is not
> that we cannot make it work. It is only that it may be less optimal due to the
> memory used by the boot loader itself. Unless we can recover it if the kernel
> relocate itself over it ? Surely doable, but it does sound to me like an
> overkill for this particular use case, i.e. a tiny, hyper-embedded board where
> running Linux is probably not the best choice in the first place, at least when
> looking at real applications. The story is different for "hobbyist" level. My
> on-going 6 DoF robotic arm project controlled with Linux on K210 is a valid use
> case after all :)

At the moment there is not too much reason to use a bootloader outside
of helping debugging/experimenting. I would like to get support to where
one can boot off the MMC slot, or perhaps over the network via the ESP32
chip on some boards. This is something that the built-in firmware cannot
do.

>>>
>>> For the hardware ID, could we do something like:
>>>
>>> * Check for the top-level DT compatible string, on systems where we have a
>>>   provided DTB.
>>> * Check for a matching mimpid/marchid/mvendorid tuple, maybe with some
>>> sort of
>>>   masking functionality if we later need one.  These are availiable via SBI
>>>   calls, but I'd be inclined to restrict them to M-mode boot and just say the
>>>   SBI must provide a device tree with at least a suitable compatible string.
>>>
>>> While I suppose we could put together a tool for generating these tables, for
>>> now we could probably just stick the mappings in a table for now given that
>>> there's only one of them.
>>>
>>> That said, I'm not sure what to do about the different Kendryte boards -- is
>>> there any way to poke the hardware to see which is which?
>>
>> I am sure there are two three different boards out there. Don't know exact
>> differences between these boards.
> 
> As far as I can tell, all the boards use the exact same SoC. No differences that
> I can detect nor aware of. What differs between the different flavors of boards
> are the perypherals attached: some have WiFi, different LCDs and different
> cameras. The device tree is able to describe that of course, but the core dtsi
> part for the SoC itself seem to be OK at least for the 4 different boards I have
> (Kendryte KD233, Sipeed MAIXDUINO, MAIX Go and Dan Dock).

Yeah, as far as I can tell the only difference is in peripherals.
Perhaps there are some differences in the firmware? There are some
hardware descriptions at 0x88001C00 and up, but they only describe the
SoC. We could try and compare dumps of the firmware. I currently have a
Maix BitM and a Maixduino.

--Sean



  parent reply	other threads:[~2020-03-06 23:57 UTC|newest]

Thread overview: 89+ messages / expand[flat|nested]  mbox.gz  Atom feed  top
2020-02-12 10:34 [PATCH 00/10] Kendryte k210 SoC boards support Damien Le Moal
2020-02-12 10:34 ` [PATCH 01/10] riscv: Fix gitignore Damien Le Moal
2020-02-20  0:15   ` Palmer Dabbelt
2020-02-12 10:34 ` [PATCH 02/10] riscv: Force flat memory model with no-mmu Damien Le Moal
2020-02-14 20:18   ` Sean Anderson
2020-02-15  2:15     ` Damien Le Moal
2020-02-15  2:26       ` Sean Anderson
2020-02-15  2:40         ` Damien Le Moal
2020-03-02  3:48   ` Anup Patel
2020-03-04 18:38   ` Palmer Dabbelt
2020-02-12 10:34 ` [PATCH 03/10] riscv: Unaligned load/store handling for M_MODE Damien Le Moal
2020-03-02  3:57   ` Anup Patel
2020-03-04 19:28   ` Palmer Dabbelt
2020-02-12 10:34 ` [PATCH 04/10] riscv: Add BUILTIN_DTB support Damien Le Moal
2020-03-02  3:58   ` Anup Patel
2020-03-04 19:28   ` Palmer Dabbelt
2020-03-05  4:58     ` Anup Patel
2020-03-05  5:14       ` Damien Le Moal
2020-03-05  5:37         ` Anup Patel
2020-03-05  6:13           ` Damien Le Moal
2020-03-08  6:10             ` Anup Patel
2020-03-05  8:18         ` Atish Patra
2020-03-07  0:02           ` Sean Anderson
2020-03-07  1:51             ` Atish Patra
2020-03-07  2:08               ` Sean Anderson
2020-03-06 23:56         ` Sean Anderson [this message]
2020-02-12 10:34 ` [PATCH 05/10] riscv: Add SOC early init support Damien Le Moal
2020-03-04 19:28   ` Palmer Dabbelt
2020-02-12 10:34 ` [PATCH 06/10] riscv: Add Kendryte K210 SoC support Damien Le Moal
2020-02-14 20:31   ` Sean Anderson
2020-03-04 19:38   ` Palmer Dabbelt
2020-02-12 10:34 ` [PATCH 07/10] riscv: Select required drivers for Kendryte SOC Damien Le Moal
2020-03-02  3:59   ` Anup Patel
2020-03-04 19:44   ` Palmer Dabbelt
2020-02-12 10:34 ` [PATCH 08/10] riscv: Add Kendryte K210 device tree Damien Le Moal
2020-02-14 20:51   ` Sean Anderson
2020-02-15  2:34     ` Damien Le Moal
2020-02-15  2:48       ` Sean Anderson
2020-02-15  3:00         ` Damien Le Moal
2020-02-18 14:12           ` Carlos Eduardo de Paula
2020-02-18 14:18             ` Sean Anderson
2020-02-18 14:30               ` Carlos Eduardo de Paula
2020-02-18 17:48                 ` Sean Anderson
2020-02-18 19:26                   ` Carlos Eduardo de Paula
2020-02-19  9:06                     ` Wladimir J. van der Laan
2020-02-19 22:28                       ` Sean Anderson
2020-02-20 10:48                         ` Wladimir J. van der Laan
2020-02-22 19:07                       ` Wladimir J. van der Laan
2020-04-01 17:55                         ` Drew Fustini
2020-04-02  2:24                           ` Damien Le Moal
2020-02-19  8:50                   ` Wladimir J. van der Laan
2020-02-27 19:43       ` Sean Anderson
2020-03-02  4:06   ` Anup Patel
2020-03-02  4:15     ` Damien Le Moal
2020-03-02  4:22       ` Anup Patel
2020-03-02  4:51         ` Damien Le Moal
2020-03-02  5:05           ` Anup Patel
2020-03-02  5:08             ` Damien Le Moal
2020-03-07  0:18               ` Sean Anderson
2020-03-07  4:11                 ` Anup Patel
2020-03-04 19:44   ` Palmer Dabbelt
2020-02-12 10:34 ` [PATCH 09/10] riscv: Kendryte K210 default config Damien Le Moal
2020-03-02  4:07   ` Anup Patel
2020-03-04 19:44   ` Palmer Dabbelt
2020-02-12 10:34 ` [PATCH 10/10] riscv: create a loader.bin for the kendryte kflash.py tool Damien Le Moal
2020-03-02  4:08   ` Anup Patel
2020-03-04 19:44   ` Palmer Dabbelt
2020-02-14 15:05 ` [PATCH 00/10] Kendryte k210 SoC boards support Carlos Eduardo de Paula
2020-02-15  2:02   ` Damien Le Moal
2020-02-17 13:28     ` Carlos Eduardo de Paula
2020-02-26 21:31       ` Carlos Eduardo de Paula
2020-02-27  2:18         ` Damien Le Moal
2020-02-28 20:32 ` Sean Anderson
2020-03-02  3:01   ` Damien Le Moal
2020-03-02  3:53     ` Sean Anderson
2020-03-02  4:11       ` Damien Le Moal
2020-03-02  4:18         ` Sean Anderson
2020-03-02  4:54           ` Damien Le Moal
2020-03-02  4:56             ` Sean Anderson
2020-03-02  5:03               ` Damien Le Moal
2020-03-02  4:17       ` Anup Patel
2020-03-02  4:21         ` Sean Anderson
2020-03-02  4:48         ` Damien Le Moal
2020-03-02  4:51           ` Damien Le Moal
2020-03-02  5:02           ` Sean Anderson
2020-03-02  5:11             ` Damien Le Moal
2020-03-02  5:25               ` Sean Anderson
2020-03-02  5:43                 ` Damien Le Moal
2020-03-04 19:44 ` Palmer Dabbelt

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