Grant Likely, owner at Secret Lab Technology, describe the current status of device tree (used to resolve ARM “hodgepodge” issue) and provides an example at Embedded Linux Conference Europe 2011.
Abstract:
In recent years, Linux has enjoyed immense success in the embedded market, and we’ve seen an explosion in the number of devices supported by the mainline Linux kernel. Traditionally, however, adding support for another embedded machine typically involved adding yet another board.c file to the kernel which more often than not was simply cut and paste from a similar board. As a result, board support code contains a huge amount of duplication and has become so huge that it is becoming unmaintainable. To move away from individual board files, several architectures have adopted the Device Tree method of encoding the hardware details into a data structure which can be parsed by generic initialization code and device drivers. This session discusses the current state of Device Tree support in Linux and the device tree is used to bring up Linux on a new hardware platform.
I could not find this year presentation slides, but you can still download last year presentation for reference.
Jean-Luc started CNX Software in 2010 as a part-time endeavor, before quitting his job as a software engineering manager, and starting to write daily news, and reviews full time later in 2011.
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