Re: [Qemu-devel] [RFC PATCH V1 1/2] arm_boot: added linux switch

[Peter Crosthwaite]

On Mon, Jun 25, 2012 at 7:03 PM, Peter Maydell <address@hidden> wrote:
> On 25 June 2012 09:55, Peter Crosthwaite
> <address@hidden> wrote:
>> As for architectures, I can speak for Microblaze and the PPC
>> bootloader for virtex_ml507. The DTB will blob in regardless of
>> whether its an elf or not, so no is_linux switch is needed there for
>> my Linux elfs. There is no functional difference between linux and not
>> linux in those bootloaders.
>
> Yes, it is exactly the "on architecture X we behave like this and
> on architecture Y we do something else" that I dislike, and this is
> why I'm not happy with any patch which is just trying to band-aid
> a situation on architecture X rather than trying to address the
> more general situation.
>

Well if X and Y behave differently and you want to unify them, then
either X or Y loses backwards compatibility. Someone is going to have
their command line change on them.

Looking at some of the other bootloaders, I dont see others that
"assume elfs are not linux", so it seems to me that ARM is the
exception, not the rule. So from that unification would involve
getting rid of this ARM assumption that elfs are different. Just boot
the elf with the linux style bootloader like most other platforms.

> -- PMM