Thread (33 messages) 33 messages, 11 authors, 2013-03-11

Multi-platform, and secure-only ARM errata workarounds

From: Stephen Warren <hidden>
Date: 2013-02-26 16:39:15
Also in: linux-tegra

On 02/26/2013 02:36 AM, Marc Dietrich wrote:
Stephen,

Am Montag, 25. Februar 2013, 16:47:38 schrieb Stephen Warren:
quoted
I'm looking into enabling CONFIG_MULTIPLATFORM on Tegra for 3.10, and
the main blocking issue is due to commit 62e4d35 "ARM: 7609/1: disable
errata work-arounds which access secure registers". Various Tegra
versions need 3 of those workarounds, and our bootloader doesn't
implement them (at the least, upstream U-Boot; not sure about our
downstream code, but I'm fairly sure given the lack of any feedback I
got in the bug I filed to implement them).

Now, I can easily add those 3 errata workarounds to U-Boot, but that
will require people to reflash their bootloader. This is probably
acceptable for development/reference boards (although I'm sure people
will find it annoying) but for re-purposed production boards (such as
the Toshiba AC100 or various tablets) it will be impossible to update
the factory bootloader. Switching to upstream U-Boot would currently
lose some functionality, and significantly affect people's boot flow, so
is likely unacceptable.
personally, I have no problem to require a certain u-boot version for a given 
kernel. From a distro point of view, you will likely update the 
bootloader/kernel on a distro update anyway.
So a distro will certainly update the kernel.

But updating a bootloader would be very unusual, I believe.

Also, I hope that upstream U-Boot is never going to support the bizarre
"Tegra partition table" cruft that our "fastboot" bootloader supports,
so you'll end up completely re-programming the flash (BCT, bootloader,
partition table, all filesystems) if you want to switch to U-Boot. That
seems like a fair chunk for the installer to own, but I guess if you're
comfortable with doing that, I won't complain.
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