Updates

Wed Jul 16 15:50:08 CEST 2008

arne anka wrote:
>>> Should I think of u-boot as the OpenMoko version of Grub?
>> kinda. and some kind of bios, maybe.

That's correct - u-boot is responsible for initializing the hardware 
(like a PC BIOS) as well as for loading and booting the kernel (like Grub).
>> In which
>> case why can't opkg update this?

It should be possible to update it from Linux. The flash partitions are 
exposed as /dev/mtd* devices, and the kernel package updates its 
corresponding flash partition when installed.
In the past there was a bug that interfered with writing to flash from 
Linux, and it was very risky to touch the u-boot partition because a 
mistake could leave you with a bricked device. Neither of these is a 
concern for the Freerunner, so it should be possible for someone to put 
an 'opkg' wrapper around u-boot. This wrapper would have to flash the 
correct u-boot for the revision level of the hardware (e.g. GTA02v4 vs. 
GTA02v5).
>> Does flashing the root filesystem wipe out /home?
>> yepp. that's a big disadvantage imho.

Workaround: move /home to the SD card and then create a /home symlink on 
the root filesystem. Or just update your software with "opkg" rather 
than re-flashing the whole rootfs.