Re: [Ltib] mpc8349e-mitx LTIB upgrade to 2.6.22

[Stuart Hughes]

Hi Steve,

I asked around about newer kernels for the mpc8349e-mitx.  No one was
sure about the 2.6.22.  However someone is using the following:

----------------
we seem to have one running u-boot 1.3.4-00258-g583481c and booting
linux 2.6.25-rc8-00022, and another running u-boot 1.3.4-rc2 and booting
linux-2.6.27-rc1-08466-gcf2ba0a.
----------------

This information comes with absolutely no warranty as I've no way to
verify.  My advice would be to try the latest kernel/u-boots.  You'll
need to upgrade u-boot as the later kernels use the dtc as I explained
before.  Unfortunately I don't have any detail instructions on how to do
this.

Regards, Stuart

On Wed, 2008-11-19 at 09:48 +0000, Stuart Hughes wrote:
> Hi Steve,
> 
> Lots of questions here, I'll try to answer as best I can.
> 
> Your basic approach is sound, you can upgrade kernels.  However you need
> to find one that works for your targeted platform.
> 
> The way LTIB works is that LTIB has BSP abstractions.  These define a
> set of references (through spec files) that are used to build kernels
> and other packages.  In the case of the 8349itx, the last ones release
> by Freescale were the 2.6.13/16 with a set of patches that the BSP
> engineers made for them.   The content that LTIB references is stored on
> the GPP here: http://www.bitshrine.org/gpp/  this is just a web
> directory that had all the sources/patches we use.
> 
> So in your case, you can't expect to upgrade to 2.6.22 and automatically
> see a set of mpc8349itx patch there, unless someone created them for
> that version.  Also it's quite likely that many of the patches for
> earlier kernels get obsoleted as they get merged upstream.
> 
> To answer your specific questions:
> 
> 1/ Yes you may be able to get this work, but you first need to discover
> which is the most appropriate recent kernel and what (if anything) is
> needed for the 8349itx.  I will ask the people I know and get back to
> you if there is anything.
> 
> 2/ You can find out what's available by visiting this url: 
> http://www.bitshrine.org/gpp/ however this is not correlated in any way.
> The thing that groups the files for a package are the spec files in
> LTIB.
> 
> 3/ The general rule is that for patches that are not temporary
> work-arounds, they are send upstream to kernel.org for merging.  This
> usually means that later kernels incorporate the patches seen in earlier
> kernels (in LTIB).
> 
> Note also for later kernels (after 2.6.16?) you may need to upgrade your
> u-boot to handle the flat device tree (dtb).  I'm not an expert on this
> and you'll need to ask elsewhere.  I suspect if your kernel is okay,
> this may be causing your boot problems.
> 
> Regards, Stuart
> 
> On Tue, 2008-11-18 at 19:23 -0800, Steve DeLaney wrote:
> > We are working with the MPC8348E-MITX board.
> > The in-box LTIB is linux kernel 2.6.13.4.  
> > we are attempting to upgrade to 2.6.22
> > 
> > Whats the point? Having encountered a PCI enumeration
> > problem with a PLX 6152 bridge, 
> > we are attempting to upgrade the kernel.
> > 
> > based on a thread in freescale forums, it looks like
> > 2.6.22 upgrade has been done 
> > before.  unfortunately not too extensively documented.
> >  
> > so I will add a bit of color here:
> > 
> > we completed changes to the ltib files
> > config/platform/mpc8349itx/main.lkc, created
> > linux-2.6.22-mpc8349itx.config, 
> > along with
> > dist/lfs-5.1/kernel/kernel-2.6.22-mpc8349itx.spec.in
> > 
> > so far so good.  after ltib --configure starts the
> > 2.6.22 build, 
> > it downloads the kernel from bitshrine
> > but in www.bitshrine.org/gpp, no suitable
> > patch file exists for kernel-2.6.22-mpc8349itx 
> > in fact the patches die off after 2.6.13 and 2.6.16
> > 
> > well, after booting linux 2.6.22 and loading the
> > ramdisk, the system hangs.  
> > 
> > now that we've come this far, we'd like to confirm
> > that this upgrade is 
> > feasible, and perhaps some advice on how to locate and
> > incorporate patch file(s).
> > 
> > we are trying to figure out...
> > 
> > 1.  will this work ?
> > 
> > 2. is there any way to know what patches exist in PPP?
> > 
> > 3. assuming 2.6.22 can be built for the mpc8349, what
> > became of the earlier patches say from 2.6.13?  Were
> > they propagated upstream to kernel.org?
> > 
> > thanks,
> > /steverino2
> >