Daniel Serpell wrote:
It works fairly well, but does mean that it's
not possible to install something like U-Boot or OpenFirmware to take
control immediately after a reset, there's an inescapable lower-level
loader.
Note that currently it *is* possible to use u-boot in the R-Pi, see:
http://elinux.org/RPi_U-Boot
Please refer to the para above. Something like OpenFirmware,
particularly running on the Sun kit on which it was first implemented,
can inspect the boot media with no prerequisites. U-Boot on the RPi
can't do this, it assumes that there's an intact FAT device with some
minimal collection of firmware files.
I'm not knocking the RPi for adopting this approach, but it's definitely
a case of "swings and roundabouts".
With respect to mainline kernel support, this page shows a pretty good
picture:
http://elinux.org/RPi_Upstreaming
Many of the drivers are already upstreamed or queued for 4.4.
So is there a chance it will be supported by "Stretch", or will it be
whatever comes after that?
--
Mark Morgan Lloyd
markMLl .AT. telemetry.co .DOT. uk
[Opinions above are the author's, not those of his employers or colleagues]
