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Documentation / sh / new-machine.txt

Based on kernel version 2.6.26. Page generated on 2008-07-16 21:13 EST.

1	
2	                Adding a new board to LinuxSH
3	               ================================
4	
5	               Paul Mundt <lethal[AT]linux-sh[DOT]org>
6	
7	This document attempts to outline what steps are necessary to add support
8	for new boards to the LinuxSH port under the new 2.5 and 2.6 kernels. This
9	also attempts to outline some of the noticeable changes between the 2.4
10	and the 2.5/2.6 SH backend.
11	
12	1. New Directory Structure
13	==========================
14	
15	The first thing to note is the new directory structure. Under 2.4, most
16	of the board-specific code (with the exception of stboards) ended up
17	in arch/sh/kernel/ directly, with board-specific headers ending up in
18	include/asm-sh/. For the new kernel, things are broken out by board type,
19	companion chip type, and CPU type. Looking at a tree view of this directory
20	hierarchy looks like the following:
21	
22	Board-specific code:
23	
24	.
25	|-- arch
26	|   `-- sh
27	|       `-- boards
28	|           |-- adx
29	|           |   `-- board-specific files
30	|           |-- bigsur
31	|           |   `-- board-specific files
32	|           |
33	|           ... more boards here ...
34	|
35	`-- include
36	    `-- asm-sh
37	        |-- adx
38	        |   `-- board-specific headers
39	        |-- bigsur
40	        |   `-- board-specific headers
41	        |
42		.. more boards here ...
43	
44	Next, for companion chips:
45	.
46	`-- arch
47	    `-- sh
48	        `-- cchips
49	            `-- hd6446x
50	                |-- hd64461
51	                |   `-- cchip-specific files
52	                `-- hd64465
53	                    `-- cchip-specific files
54	
55	... and so on. Headers for the companion chips are treated the same way as
56	board-specific headers. Thus, include/asm-sh/hd64461 is home to all of the
57	hd64461-specific headers.
58	
59	Finally, CPU family support is also abstracted:
60	.
61	|-- arch
62	|   `-- sh
63	|       |-- kernel
64	|       |   `-- cpu
65	|       |       |-- sh2
66	|       |       |   `-- SH-2 generic files
67	|       |       |-- sh3
68	|       |       |   `-- SH-3 generic files
69	|       |       `-- sh4
70	|       |           `-- SH-4 generic files
71	|       `-- mm
72	|           `-- This is also broken out per CPU family, so each family can
73	|               have their own set of cache/tlb functions.
74	|
75	`-- include
76	    `-- asm-sh
77	        |-- cpu-sh2
78	        |   `-- SH-2 specific headers
79	        |-- cpu-sh3
80	        |   `-- SH-3 specific headers
81	        `-- cpu-sh4
82	            `-- SH-4 specific headers
83	
84	It should be noted that CPU subtypes are _not_ abstracted. Thus, these still
85	need to be dealt with by the CPU family specific code.
86	
87	2. Adding a New Board
88	=====================
89	
90	The first thing to determine is whether the board you are adding will be
91	isolated, or whether it will be part of a family of boards that can mostly
92	share the same board-specific code with minor differences.
93	
94	In the first case, this is just a matter of making a directory for your
95	board in arch/sh/boards/ and adding rules to hook your board in with the
96	build system (more on this in the next section). However, for board families
97	it makes more sense to have a common top-level arch/sh/boards/ directory
98	and then populate that with sub-directories for each member of the family.
99	Both the Solution Engine and the hp6xx boards are an example of this.
100	
101	After you have setup your new arch/sh/boards/ directory, remember that you
102	should also add a directory in include/asm-sh for headers localized to this
103	board (if there are going to be more than one). In order to interoperate
104	seamlessly with the build system, it's best to have this directory the same
105	as the arch/sh/boards/ directory name, though if your board is again part of
106	a family, the build system has ways of dealing with this (via incdir-y
107	overloading), and you can feel free to name the directory after the family
108	member itself.
109	
110	There are a few things that each board is required to have, both in the
111	arch/sh/boards and the include/asm-sh/ hierarchy. In order to better
112	explain this, we use some examples for adding an imaginary board. For
113	setup code, we're required at the very least to provide definitions for
114	get_system_type() and platform_setup(). For our imaginary board, this
115	might look something like:
116	
117	/*
118	 * arch/sh/boards/vapor/setup.c - Setup code for imaginary board
119	 */
120	#include <linux/init.h>
121	#include <asm/rtc.h> /* for board_time_init() */
122	
123	const char *get_system_type(void)
124	{
125		return "FooTech Vaporboard";
126	}
127	
128	int __init platform_setup(void)
129	{
130	  	/*
131		 * If our hardware actually existed, we would do real
132		 * setup here. Though it's also sane to leave this empty
133		 * if there's no real init work that has to be done for
134		 * this board.
135		 */
136	
137	  	/* 
138		 * Presume all FooTech boards have the same broken timer,
139		 * and also presume that we've defined foo_timer_init to
140		 * do something useful.
141		 */
142	  	board_time_init = foo_timer_init;
143	
144		/* Start-up imaginary PCI ... */
145	
146		/* And whatever else ... */
147	
148		return 0;
149	}
150	
151	Our new imaginary board will also have to tie into the machvec in order for it
152	to be of any use.
153	
154	machvec functions fall into a number of categories:
155	
156	 - I/O functions to IO memory (inb etc) and PCI/main memory (readb etc).
157	 - I/O mapping functions (ioport_map, ioport_unmap, etc).
158	 - a 'heartbeat' function.
159	 - PCI and IRQ initialization routines.
160	 - Consistent allocators (for boards that need special allocators,
161	   particularly for allocating out of some board-specific SRAM for DMA
162	   handles).
163	
164	There are machvec functions added and removed over time, so always be sure to
165	consult include/asm-sh/machvec.h for the current state of the machvec.
166	
167	The kernel will automatically wrap in generic routines for undefined function
168	pointers in the machvec at boot time, as machvec functions are referenced
169	unconditionally throughout most of the tree. Some boards have incredibly
170	sparse machvecs (such as the dreamcast and sh03), whereas others must define
171	virtually everything (rts7751r2d).
172	
173	Adding a new machine is relatively trivial (using vapor as an example):
174	
175	If the board-specific definitions are quite minimalistic, as is the case for
176	the vast majority of boards, simply having a single board-specific header is
177	sufficient.
178	
179	 - add a new file include/asm-sh/vapor.h which contains prototypes for
180	   any machine specific IO functions prefixed with the machine name, for
181	   example vapor_inb. These will be needed when filling out the machine
182	   vector.
183	
184	   Note that these prototypes are generated automatically by setting
185	   __IO_PREFIX to something sensible. A typical example would be:
186	
187		#define __IO_PREFIX vapor
188	   	#include <asm/io_generic.h>
189	
190	   somewhere in the board-specific header. Any boards being ported that still
191	   have a legacy io.h should remove it entirely and switch to the new model.
192	
193	 - Add machine vector definitions to the board's setup.c. At a bare minimum,
194	   this must be defined as something like:
195	
196		struct sh_machine_vector mv_vapor __initmv = {
197			.mv_name = "vapor",
198		};
199		ALIAS_MV(vapor)
200	
201	 - finally add a file arch/sh/boards/vapor/io.c, which contains definitions of
202	   the machine specific io functions (if there are enough to warrant it).
203	
204	3. Hooking into the Build System
205	================================
206	
207	Now that we have the corresponding directories setup, and all of the
208	board-specific code is in place, it's time to look at how to get the
209	whole mess to fit into the build system.
210	
211	Large portions of the build system are now entirely dynamic, and merely
212	require the proper entry here and there in order to get things done.
213	
214	The first thing to do is to add an entry to arch/sh/Kconfig, under the
215	"System type" menu:
216	
217	config SH_VAPOR
218		bool "Vapor"
219		help
220		  select Vapor if configuring for a FooTech Vaporboard.
221	
222	next, this has to be added into arch/sh/Makefile. All boards require a
223	machdir-y entry in order to be built. This entry needs to be the name of
224	the board directory as it appears in arch/sh/boards, even if it is in a
225	sub-directory (in which case, all parent directories below arch/sh/boards/
226	need to be listed). For our new board, this entry can look like:
227	
228	machdir-$(CONFIG_SH_VAPOR)	+= vapor
229	
230	provided that we've placed everything in the arch/sh/boards/vapor/ directory.
231	
232	Next, the build system assumes that your include/asm-sh directory will also
233	be named the same. If this is not the case (as is the case with multiple
234	boards belonging to a common family), then the directory name needs to be
235	implicitly appended to incdir-y. The existing code manages this for the
236	Solution Engine and hp6xx boards, so see these for an example.
237	
238	Once that is taken care of, it's time to add an entry for the mach type.
239	This is done by adding an entry to the end of the arch/sh/tools/mach-types
240	list. The method for doing this is self explanatory, and so we won't waste
241	space restating it here. After this is done, you will be able to use
242	implicit checks for your board if you need this somewhere throughout the
243	common code, such as:
244	
245		/* Make sure we're on the FooTech Vaporboard */
246		if (!mach_is_vapor())
247			return -ENODEV;
248	
249	also note that the mach_is_boardname() check will be implicitly forced to
250	lowercase, regardless of the fact that the mach-types entries are all
251	uppercase. You can read the script if you really care, but it's pretty ugly,
252	so you probably don't want to do that.
253	
254	Now all that's left to do is providing a defconfig for your new board. This
255	way, other people who end up with this board can simply use this config
256	for reference instead of trying to guess what settings are supposed to be
257	used on it.
258	
259	Also, as soon as you have copied over a sample .config for your new board
260	(assume arch/sh/configs/vapor_defconfig), you can also use this directly as a
261	build target, and it will be implicitly listed as such in the help text.
262	
263	Looking at the 'make help' output, you should now see something like:
264	
265	Architecture specific targets (sh):
266	  zImage                  - Compressed kernel image (arch/sh/boot/zImage)
267	  adx_defconfig           - Build for adx
268	  cqreek_defconfig        - Build for cqreek
269	  dreamcast_defconfig     - Build for dreamcast
270	...
271	  vapor_defconfig         - Build for vapor
272	
273	which then allows you to do:
274	
275	$ make ARCH=sh CROSS_COMPILE=sh4-linux- vapor_defconfig vmlinux
276	
277	which will in turn copy the defconfig for this board, run it through
278	oldconfig (prompting you for any new options since the time of creation),
279	and start you on your way to having a functional kernel for your new
280	board.
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