[microblaze-uclinux] More news and updates

[John Williams <jwilliams@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Hi everyone,

As part of the experimental ML401 uClinux port that I did on the 
weekend, I spent quite a bit of time cleaning up and refactoring the 
MLD/TCL package for uClinux autoconfig BSP support.

In particular, I fixed:

  - errors when no flash memory peripheral is set
  - proper support for banked memory controllers
  - proper handling of binary, hex, and "bogus binary" (ie no leading 
"0b") values.  Also fixed the problem with underscores in hex/integer 
constants
  - added optional MSS parameter MAIN_MEMORY_SIZE, that overrides the 
size derived from the peripheral instance itself.  This was suggested to 
my by Kris Chaplin from Xilinx, as a nice way to get control over how 
much memoey the kernel can use.  IT was also necessary for the ML$01 
port since it uses a DDR memory window that is 4 times larger than the 
memory itself, to allow non-cached shadow memory.  You can see an 
example usage of this parameter in the ml401_uclinux_ref design.

Thats about it I think.  The latest version of the MLD/TCL is included 
in the ml401_uclinux_ref platform, and I've also updated the 
uClinux-auto platform as well.  It's all on the website:

http://www.itee.uq.edu.au/~jwilliams/mblaze-uclinux/Downloads/platforms.html

After refactoring, the TCL script is a lot more accessible, with more 
comments, fewer levels of nested if/for constructs and so on.  This will 
continue to evolve over time, as we think of more useful features and 
fix more bugs.

I'm thinking of better ways to distribute the MLD/TCL packages - 
bundling them into reference platforms is convenient for me, but a bit 
cumbersome to users.  I'm thinking of actually adding them to the 
microblaze arch subdir in the uClinux CVS, that way I can always publish 
the most recent version.  Indeed, there is a a reasonable argument for 
publishing complete reference designs within the uClinux tree, so they 
are always up to date.  I'll think on this a little more - if you have 
any suggestions or opinions I'm all ears.

Regards,

John
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