On Sun, 29 Mar 2009 10:27:46 -0500
Kevin Hickey <khickey@rmicorp.com> wrote:
> On Sun, 2009-03-29 at 17:03 +0400, Sergei Shtylyov wrote:
> > Single kernel binary? If it's at all possible, I am all for it.
>
> On some level, I agree but not at the expense of a larger kernel or
> longer boot times. Maybe I'm just not following how your implementation
> works but it seems to me that runtime checks will add to boot time.
> More importantly it adds to the kernel memory footprint as the tables of
> constants for multiple CPUs will have to be compiled in. If I'm
> designing a board with an Au1250 in it, I don't care about the interrupt
> numbers for Au1100 or Au1500. This problem compounds when we introduce
> Au1300 - several of its subsystems (like the interrupt controller) are
> new requiring not only a new table of constants but a new object as
> well. In the desktop space I can understand this approach, but in the
> embedded space it seems like an unnecessary resource burden.
>
> Please enlighten me :)
You're right, from a single-cpu-board POV it doesn't make sense.
However if you have a few boards which mostly differ in the Alchemy
chip used (and not much else difference in board support code), I find
this to be highly beneficial. If I can have a single binary for the
folks testing these boards, all the better!
Yes, increased binary size is to be expected, but I don't expect it to
be in the megabyte range.
I'm primarily doing this for company-internal purposes; I just thought
I'd share the final result, maybe someone else might find it useful.
Manuel Lauss
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