this week work on KBOOT

[Werner Almesberger]

Wolfgang Spraul wrote:
> do you know what Werner thinks about this direction?

Seems that I got back just at the right time ;-)

Changing the partitioning architecture and replacing u-boot with kboot
are two separate issues, so I don't quite see the need to view this as
an "either/or" question.

What both have in common is that they change the system at a
sufficiently fundamental level that it is undesirable to try to make
such a migration in the field or at the last moment before production.

I just started catching up with my mails from the last three weeks,
but if things haven't changed too much, we should be able to use u-boot
basically unchanged for GTA03. Getting rid of the dynamic partitions
would mean only a small change to u-boot. (But see below.)

Switching to kboot reduces the cost of maintaining the status quo in
the long run by avoiding the effort for keeping u-boot running (which
should be small at the moment if we freeze our version), and by
eliminating the need to port new functionality we will need in future
products. Of course, the sooner we get this done, the less time we have
to sink into u-boot.

Regarding the dynamic partitions, the actual technical implementation
is almost trivial, but I'd like to verify that my math and my
assumptions about bad block patterns are indeed correct. If our GTA02
production logs now include the bad block information, that would tell
us if my model for bad block distribution is close enough to reality.
Otherwise, we have to get a bit more creative :)

Andy, are you also considering to get rid of the bad block table, or
just the evil dynamic partitions ?

- Werner