Re: [ECOS] Are the HALs in the eCos repository meant for deployment?

["Øyvind Harboe" <oyvind dot harboe at zylin dot com>]

On 8/14/06, Gary Thomas <gary@mlbassoc.com> wrote:
> Øyvind Harboe wrote:
> > On 8/14/06, Andrew Lunn <andrew@lunn.ch> wrote:
> >> On Mon, Aug 14, 2006 at 01:54:45PM +0200, ?yvind Harboe wrote:
> >> > On 8/14/06, Gary Thomas <gary@mlbassoc.com> wrote:
> >> > >?yvind Harboe wrote:
> >> > >> Are the HALs in the eCos repository meant for deployment?
> >> > >
> >> > >Absolutely!  Every one that's in the repository is for some board or
> >> > >device that [at least at
> >> > >some time in the past] existed and the platform could be built and run
> >> > >with no software "tweaks".
> >> >
> >> > But are development/eval boards deployed? I would have thought that
> >> > largely microcontrollers would go on some custom PCB
> >>
> >> In my experiance, the hardware i've used for products is so nearly
> >> identical to the development board that i've been able to use the HAL
> >> unchanged. This is something i want, since during the two months it
> >> takes for the hardware people to design, layout, route it, get the PCB
> >> manufactured, get the components put on, power it up and put the fire
> >> out, turn the DRAM the right way around and fix the bugs in the reset
> >> logic, re-spin the board, make it run and finally put it on my desk, i
> >> want to be using the development board to do as much software
> >> development as possible.
> >
> > Even for a board like the EB40a where the final product strictly
> > followed the schemtics of EB40a as closely as possible, I found that I
> > made the following changes:
> >
> > - modifications to the EBI interface. There is no provision in the
> > EB40a HAL for configuring the EBI.
> > - The reset on the EB40a HAL does not reset external circuits(or even
> > the flash)
> > - changes to memory layout
> >
> > I.e. the eval board HAL could not be used unchanged. Copying the EB40a
> > HAL to a seperate repository and renaming was the way to go here.
>
> It seems to me that such changes could [indeed, should] be made in a flexible
> manner such that the original EB40a could still be configured as well as your
> updated board.  These changes could then be folded back into the main CVS.
>
> If the changes you need are truly platform (or even confidential) in nature,
> then a platform include file could contain the specifics in such a way that
> the generic [public] version is unchanged and you simply provide the private
> changes/specifics in that file.

I guess I'm not a believer in that the HALs need to be deployed unmodified.

I don't see a problem with duplicating the HAL into another repository
and then tweaking it w.r.t. e.g. memory layout, reset procedures, etc.

I never though to check if ecosconfig supports moving/copying a module
from one repository to another(i.e. moving the files and updating the
ecos.db), but it would be neat. :-)

Let me see if I can dig up a couple of more EB40a modifications and
post them. Ca. 20-30% of my eCos changes get committed eventually,
which is a pretty good yield :-)

--
Øyvind Harboe
http://www.zylin.com

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