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1
2                Adding a new board to LinuxSH
3               ================================
4
5               Paul Mundt <lethal@linux-sh.org>
6
7This document attempts to outline what steps are necessary to add support
8for new boards to the LinuxSH port under the new 2.5 and 2.6 kernels. This
9also attempts to outline some of the noticeable changes between the 2.4
10and the 2.5/2.6 SH backend.
11
121. New Directory Structure
13==========================
14
15The first thing to note is the new directory structure. Under 2.4, most
16of the board-specific code (with the exception of stboards) ended up
17in arch/sh/kernel/ directly, with board-specific headers ending up in
18include/asm-sh/. For the new kernel, things are broken out by board type,
19companion chip type, and CPU type. Looking at a tree view of this directory
20hierarchy looks like the following:
21
22Board-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
44Next, for companion chips:
45.
46`-- arch
47    `-- sh
48        `-- cchips
49            `-- hd6446x
50                `-- hd64461
51                    `-- cchip-specific files
52
53... and so on. Headers for the companion chips are treated the same way as
54board-specific headers. Thus, include/asm-sh/hd64461 is home to all of the
55hd64461-specific headers.
56
57Finally, CPU family support is also abstracted:
58.
59|-- arch
60|   `-- sh
61|       |-- kernel
62|       |   `-- cpu
63|       |       |-- sh2
64|       |       |   `-- SH-2 generic files
65|       |       |-- sh3
66|       |       |   `-- SH-3 generic files
67|       |       `-- sh4
68|       |           `-- SH-4 generic files
69|       `-- mm
70|           `-- This is also broken out per CPU family, so each family can
71|               have their own set of cache/tlb functions.
72|
73`-- include
74    `-- asm-sh
75        |-- cpu-sh2
76        |   `-- SH-2 specific headers
77        |-- cpu-sh3
78        |   `-- SH-3 specific headers
79        `-- cpu-sh4
80            `-- SH-4 specific headers
81
82It should be noted that CPU subtypes are _not_ abstracted. Thus, these still
83need to be dealt with by the CPU family specific code.
84
852. Adding a New Board
86=====================
87
88The first thing to determine is whether the board you are adding will be
89isolated, or whether it will be part of a family of boards that can mostly
90share the same board-specific code with minor differences.
91
92In the first case, this is just a matter of making a directory for your
93board in arch/sh/boards/ and adding rules to hook your board in with the
94build system (more on this in the next section). However, for board families
95it makes more sense to have a common top-level arch/sh/boards/ directory
96and then populate that with sub-directories for each member of the family.
97Both the Solution Engine and the hp6xx boards are an example of this.
98
99After you have setup your new arch/sh/boards/ directory, remember that you
100should also add a directory in include/asm-sh for headers localized to this
101board (if there are going to be more than one). In order to interoperate
102seamlessly with the build system, it's best to have this directory the same
103as the arch/sh/boards/ directory name, though if your board is again part of
104a family, the build system has ways of dealing with this (via incdir-y
105overloading), and you can feel free to name the directory after the family
106member itself.
107
108There are a few things that each board is required to have, both in the
109arch/sh/boards and the include/asm-sh/ hierarchy. In order to better
110explain this, we use some examples for adding an imaginary board. For
111setup code, we're required at the very least to provide definitions for
112get_system_type() and platform_setup(). For our imaginary board, this
113might look something like:
114
115/*
116 * arch/sh/boards/vapor/setup.c - Setup code for imaginary board
117 */
118#include <linux/init.h>
119
120const char *get_system_type(void)
121{
122	return "FooTech Vaporboard";
123}
124
125int __init platform_setup(void)
126{
127  	/*
128	 * If our hardware actually existed, we would do real
129	 * setup here. Though it's also sane to leave this empty
130	 * if there's no real init work that has to be done for
131	 * this board.
132	 */
133
134	/* Start-up imaginary PCI ... */
135
136	/* And whatever else ... */
137
138	return 0;
139}
140
141Our new imaginary board will also have to tie into the machvec in order for it
142to be of any use.
143
144machvec functions fall into a number of categories:
145
146 - I/O functions to IO memory (inb etc) and PCI/main memory (readb etc).
147 - I/O mapping functions (ioport_map, ioport_unmap, etc).
148 - a 'heartbeat' function.
149 - PCI and IRQ initialization routines.
150 - Consistent allocators (for boards that need special allocators,
151   particularly for allocating out of some board-specific SRAM for DMA
152   handles).
153
154There are machvec functions added and removed over time, so always be sure to
155consult include/asm-sh/machvec.h for the current state of the machvec.
156
157The kernel will automatically wrap in generic routines for undefined function
158pointers in the machvec at boot time, as machvec functions are referenced
159unconditionally throughout most of the tree. Some boards have incredibly
160sparse machvecs (such as the dreamcast and sh03), whereas others must define
161virtually everything (rts7751r2d).
162
163Adding a new machine is relatively trivial (using vapor as an example):
164
165If the board-specific definitions are quite minimalistic, as is the case for
166the vast majority of boards, simply having a single board-specific header is
167sufficient.
168
169 - add a new file include/asm-sh/vapor.h which contains prototypes for
170   any machine specific IO functions prefixed with the machine name, for
171   example vapor_inb. These will be needed when filling out the machine
172   vector.
173
174   Note that these prototypes are generated automatically by setting
175   __IO_PREFIX to something sensible. A typical example would be:
176
177	#define __IO_PREFIX vapor
178   	#include <asm/io_generic.h>
179
180   somewhere in the board-specific header. Any boards being ported that still
181   have a legacy io.h should remove it entirely and switch to the new model.
182
183 - Add machine vector definitions to the board's setup.c. At a bare minimum,
184   this must be defined as something like:
185
186	struct sh_machine_vector mv_vapor __initmv = {
187		.mv_name = "vapor",
188	};
189	ALIAS_MV(vapor)
190
191 - finally add a file arch/sh/boards/vapor/io.c, which contains definitions of
192   the machine specific io functions (if there are enough to warrant it).
193
1943. Hooking into the Build System
195================================
196
197Now that we have the corresponding directories setup, and all of the
198board-specific code is in place, it's time to look at how to get the
199whole mess to fit into the build system.
200
201Large portions of the build system are now entirely dynamic, and merely
202require the proper entry here and there in order to get things done.
203
204The first thing to do is to add an entry to arch/sh/Kconfig, under the
205"System type" menu:
206
207config SH_VAPOR
208	bool "Vapor"
209	help
210	  select Vapor if configuring for a FooTech Vaporboard.
211
212next, this has to be added into arch/sh/Makefile. All boards require a
213machdir-y entry in order to be built. This entry needs to be the name of
214the board directory as it appears in arch/sh/boards, even if it is in a
215sub-directory (in which case, all parent directories below arch/sh/boards/
216need to be listed). For our new board, this entry can look like:
217
218machdir-$(CONFIG_SH_VAPOR)	+= vapor
219
220provided that we've placed everything in the arch/sh/boards/vapor/ directory.
221
222Next, the build system assumes that your include/asm-sh directory will also
223be named the same. If this is not the case (as is the case with multiple
224boards belonging to a common family), then the directory name needs to be
225implicitly appended to incdir-y. The existing code manages this for the
226Solution Engine and hp6xx boards, so see these for an example.
227
228Once that is taken care of, it's time to add an entry for the mach type.
229This is done by adding an entry to the end of the arch/sh/tools/mach-types
230list. The method for doing this is self explanatory, and so we won't waste
231space restating it here. After this is done, you will be able to use
232implicit checks for your board if you need this somewhere throughout the
233common code, such as:
234
235	/* Make sure we're on the FooTech Vaporboard */
236	if (!mach_is_vapor())
237		return -ENODEV;
238
239also note that the mach_is_boardname() check will be implicitly forced to
240lowercase, regardless of the fact that the mach-types entries are all
241uppercase. You can read the script if you really care, but it's pretty ugly,
242so you probably don't want to do that.
243
244Now all that's left to do is providing a defconfig for your new board. This
245way, other people who end up with this board can simply use this config
246for reference instead of trying to guess what settings are supposed to be
247used on it.
248
249Also, as soon as you have copied over a sample .config for your new board
250(assume arch/sh/configs/vapor_defconfig), you can also use this directly as a
251build target, and it will be implicitly listed as such in the help text.
252
253Looking at the 'make help' output, you should now see something like:
254
255Architecture specific targets (sh):
256  zImage                  - Compressed kernel image (arch/sh/boot/zImage)
257  adx_defconfig           - Build for adx
258  cqreek_defconfig        - Build for cqreek
259  dreamcast_defconfig     - Build for dreamcast
260...
261  vapor_defconfig         - Build for vapor
262
263which then allows you to do:
264
265$ make ARCH=sh CROSS_COMPILE=sh4-linux- vapor_defconfig vmlinux
266
267which will in turn copy the defconfig for this board, run it through
268oldconfig (prompting you for any new options since the time of creation),
269and start you on your way to having a functional kernel for your new
270board.
271