[Freedombox-discuss] report on activities in Banja Luka

[Jason]

Bdale,

On Sat, Aug 06, 2011 at 11:39:12AM -0600, Bdale Garbee wrote:
> I just posted a lengthy entry in my blog reporting on FreedomBox
> activities at the recently-concluded Debconf11 in Banja Luka.  It should
> show up in the various planets and so forth that aggregate my entries
> shortly, or you can read it directly here:  
> 
>         http://www.gag.com/bdale/blog/

>From "DreamPlug Kernels":
> One of our discoveries during the u-boot and kernel work during Debconf
> was that Globalscale did not obtain a new machine id for the DreamPlug,
> but instead re-used the one for the GuruPlug series, despite there being
> some differences in the hardware that require at least one additional
> driver. After much discussion, we plan to continue using the existing
> machine id instead of requesting another, particularly because the ARM
> kernel community has apparently stopped issuing new ids for the moment.
> We will add a new kernel config option for the DreamPlug, however, and
> are likely to build distinct Sheeva and Dream kernel packages that do
> not require initrd for use in FreedomBox images, even if doing so is not
> strictly necessary. This will allow us to optimize both the in-memory
> footprint and boot times for our devices.

I have now found 3 patches in arm for devicetree (the beast that was
holding me back).  So, now I have some examples to work from.  I've
already started stubbing out the code.  Depending on your timeline, and
how quickly I can learn devicetree, it might be worth reconsidering the
above.

As a status, MACH_TYPE_DREAMPLUG is already reserved (3550), and new
patches are being accepted into the arm tree iff they are devicetree.
I also already have the patch for using the new machid in u-boot.  Once
I have a not-laughed-at patch series in linux-arm-kernel, u-boot should
be much more amenable.

hth,

Jason.