[PATCH] ARM: supply a DTB file to be appended

On Thu, 8 Sep 2011, Linus Walleij wrote:

From: Linus Walleij <redacted>

This adds a Kconfig string where you can specify a
file to be appended to the zImage on build, then
auto-appends it. The idea is to mimic how we supply
an initramfs image by a similar parameter.

This makes it easy to script the kernel build with
different device trees, and it also vastly simplifies
building uImages since "make uImage" will now pick
up the devcie tree and include it in the final image
as part of the build process.

Cc: Nicolas Pitre <redacted>
Cc: David Brown <redacted>
Cc: Niklas Hernaeus <redacted>
Cc: Grant Likely <redacted>
Signed-off-by: Linus Walleij <redacted>
---
This builds on top of Nicos pending appended device tree
patches. Nico, if this gains some liking, please include
it in your series.

I don't like it -- see my previous email for the rational.

I don't want usage of this feature to be vastly simplified.  I want you 
to put pressure on your bootloader team to implement proper DTB passing.
I want the promise of having DT data independent from the kernel binary 
to stay true up to a point, even with bootloaders lacking native support 
for it.  I don't want the incentive to do things properly buried away.

I did resist the idea of even merging this DTB append ability 
into mainline initially.  Given the bootloader reality out there I 
eventually gave in, but I don't want the production flow around it to 
just remain unchanged from the days we didn't have DT at all.


Nicolas