[PATCH v5 0/4] ARM: ep93xx: ts72xx: Add support for BK3 board

On Wed, Dec 13, 2017 at 9:52 AM, Lukasz Majewski [off-list ref] wrote:

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On Wed Dec 13 08:34:22 2017 Linus Walleij [off-list ref]
wrote:

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On Tue, Dec 12, 2017 at 12:36 AM, Lukasz Majewski [off-list ref]
wrote: Out of curiosity: Liebherr is obviously doing heavy-duty
industrial control systems. Likewise Hartley is doing similar
business over at Vision Engravings.

Is the situation such that there is a whole bunch of industrial
systems out there, in active use and needing future upgrades,
that use the EP93xx?

That's definitely the case. I'm as well aware of several thousands of
industrial devices which are expected to run 24/7 for the next 5
years at least. And they are updated from time to time.

I can agree with this statement.

OK I'm coloring this platform with a highlight for ARM32 maintenance.

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Arnd has been nudging me to do DT conversion for EP93xx
so if there are many active industrial users of these
I should prioritize it, because these things have 20+ years
support cycles.

I'm not sure how important or necessary at all is to change anything
in these legacy platforms.

+1

That is an understandable conservative stance.

There is a fine line between "it works, don't touch it" and
"modernize the ARM32 ecosystem".

There is a point where supporting old board files will stand in
the way and cost a lot in maintenance (like moving drivers our
of arch/arm, or modernizing misc subsystems). Then moving the
platform over to device tree should be preferred.

I'm using OE to build toolchain (SDK). I can confirm that gcc 7.2 works
with it.

And yes, armv4 support shall be preserved in GCC ....

Yes that is the same toochain I use.

Yours,
Linus Walleij