Re: [PATCH 02/12] Blackfin arch: Add label to call new GPIO API

[David Brownell <david-b@pacbell.net>]

On Friday 17 August 2007, Mike Frysinger wrote:

> as Michael pointed out, in the Blackfin world we tend to keep things
> very dynamic as we have dev systems which allow for dropping in of
> optional cards at will, so doing this in the bootloader is way too
> inflexible.

That's the tradeoff:  optimize for development boards, or
instead for more fixed-function product boards.


> oh, and another [smallish] data point.  the Blackfin processor has a
> small bootrom on it that could be likened to a very micro bios.  so
> it's possible to actually boot the linux kernel straight without a
> boot loader.  send the kernel over the UART to a Blackfin and watch it
> go go go :)

That's not uncommon, although I'm more used to seeing the
on-chip ROMs relying on a second stage loader for stuff like
getting memory and other clocks going at optimal speeds,
and loading "big" images (that won't fit on-chip SRAM).

- Dave