Re: [microblaze-uclinux] RE: SystemAce and mb-uClinux

[Peter Ryser <Peter.Ryser@xilinx.com>]

> I originally hoped the xparameters.h file could be pullked straight 
> from an EDK project build, and used directly without manual changes. 
> However, right now that is not possible, basically because it would 
> enfore a peripheral naming scheme to be consistent between the MHS 
> kernel, which is not very elegant at all.
>
>> But there is a script in the ml300-linux demo from
>> xilinx which modifies xparameters according to their
>> need. May be something like that is possible for uClinux as well?
>
>
> It's definitely possible, and probably essential really.  I haven't 
> seen it, but would be surprised if that script required more than 
> trivial changes to work with microblaze.
>
> Longer term, I am thinking about ways of auto configuring the kernel 
> according to the MHS file, basically automate the entire procedure.  
> But for now it's mostly ideas, and a few experiments. 



The EDK reference design offers a sneak peak of technology that in the 
future will be included with EDK. It automatically generates a Linux BSP 
out of the system.mhs and system.mss files. The Linux BSP consists of 
the OS independent layer 0/1 Xilinx drivers and a xparameters.h 
(actually xparameters_ml300.h). The BSP is copied over an existing Linux 
kernel, thus, updating the kernel with the latest drivers. The device 
names are redefined in the xparameters_ml300.h file, i.e. the names that 
the user has chosen when he designed his system are present as well as 
generic names that are used in the driver adapters (layer 2) in the 
Linux kernel.

I cannot see why the driver adapters and the above technology should be 
different for MB than for PPC. The only exception is the architecture 
dependent stuff (arch/microblaze vs arch/ppc). However, we are currently 
looking into moving these parts into drivers/xilinx.

An automatic .config generation is possible but at the moment not very 
useful. The world outside the FPGA is still much bigger than the one 
inside. Two examples are IIC and PCI. The system.mhs does and most 
likely will never contain information about devices on these buses. 
However, for a proper configured Linux kernel you need that information.

- Peter


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