Hi all, I'm wondering if there is an official way to load bare metal software within qemu emulations. I've seen a lot of people (including us) using -kernel. However, the doc seems to imply that the generic loader would be a better approach (cf [1]). I know that the compatibility with older Qemus is one of the reasons why -kernel is still highly used. I've also seen that the reset vector can be initialized automatically by -kernel unlike with the generic loader (this is the case with RiscV AFAICT). But is there any kind of official recommendation on that topic ?
I'm asking that because a recent change in RiscV Polarfire Soc is forcing -dtb to be passed along -kernel. But in case of bare board software, -dtb isn't needed (at least in our use case). I've a patch that allows "-dtb" to be missing with "-kernel" only if "-bios none" is provided. But I'm not sure if this is the right way to say "it's a bare board software". @Bin Meng you're the one that added this -kernel support in PolarFire Soc. Thus, is my approach looking good for you or do you have a better one in mind ? [1] https://www.qemu.org/docs/master/system/qemu-manpage.html#hxtool-8 Thanks, Clément
