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authorSimon Glass <sjg@chromium.org>2024-03-29 06:28:36 +0300
committerWill Deacon <will@kernel.org>2024-04-12 17:48:32 +0300
commit7a23b027ec17b2eb9c8ad9b09006502f3fa38215 (patch)
tree2c89a64c6a0e0af436462b38a2718e558004defe /Documentation/process/changes.rst
parent0dc1670bd0cef948ce782d6b3902af9bf8604beb (diff)
downloadlinux-7a23b027ec17b2eb9c8ad9b09006502f3fa38215.tar.xz
arm64: boot: Support Flat Image Tree
Add a script which produces a Flat Image Tree (FIT), a single file containing the built kernel and associated devicetree files. Compression defaults to gzip which gives a good balance of size and performance. The files compress from about 86MB to 24MB using this approach. The FIT can be used by bootloaders which support it, such as U-Boot and Linuxboot. It permits automatic selection of the correct devicetree, matching the compatible string of the running board with the closest compatible string in the FIT. There is no need for filenames or other workarounds. Add a 'make image.fit' build target for arm64, as well. The FIT can be examined using 'dumpimage -l'. This uses the 'dtbs-list' file but processes only .dtb files, ignoring the overlay .dtbo files. This features requires pylibfdt (use 'pip install libfdt'). It also requires compression utilities for the algorithm being used. Supported compression options are the same as the Image.xxx files. Use FIT_COMPRESSION to select an algorithm other than gzip. While FIT supports a ramdisk / initrd, no attempt is made to support this here, since it must be built separately from the Linux build. Signed-off-by: Simon Glass <sjg@chromium.org> Acked-by: Masahiro Yamada <masahiroy@kernel.org> Link: https://lore.kernel.org/r/20240329032836.141899-3-sjg@chromium.org Signed-off-by: Will Deacon <will@kernel.org>
Diffstat (limited to 'Documentation/process/changes.rst')
-rw-r--r--Documentation/process/changes.rst9
1 files changed, 9 insertions, 0 deletions
diff --git a/Documentation/process/changes.rst b/Documentation/process/changes.rst
index 7ef8de58f7f8..3a39395bd9d3 100644
--- a/Documentation/process/changes.rst
+++ b/Documentation/process/changes.rst
@@ -62,6 +62,7 @@ Sphinx\ [#f1]_ 2.4.4 sphinx-build --version
cpio any cpio --version
GNU tar 1.28 tar --version
gtags (optional) 6.6.5 gtags --version
+mkimage (optional) 2017.01 mkimage --version
====================== =============== ========================================
.. [#f1] Sphinx is needed only to build the Kernel documentation
@@ -189,6 +190,14 @@ The kernel build requires GNU GLOBAL version 6.6.5 or later to generate
tag files through ``make gtags``. This is due to its use of the gtags
``-C (--directory)`` flag.
+mkimage
+-------
+
+This tool is used when building a Flat Image Tree (FIT), commonly used on ARM
+platforms. The tool is available via the ``u-boot-tools`` package or can be
+built from the U-Boot source code. See the instructions at
+https://docs.u-boot.org/en/latest/build/tools.html#building-tools-for-linux
+
System utilities
****************