On Sun, 29 Mar 2009 10:27:46 -0500 Kevin Hickey <khickey@xxxxxxxxxxx> 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
