2 Adding a new board to LinuxSH
3 ================================
5 Paul Mundt <lethal@linux-sh.org>
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.
12 1. New Directory Structure
13 ==========================
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:
29 | | `-- board-specific files
31 | | `-- board-specific files
33 | ... more boards here ...
38 | `-- board-specific headers
40 | `-- board-specific headers
42 .. more boards here ...
44 Next, for companion chips:
51 | `-- cchip-specific files
53 `-- cchip-specific files
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.
59 Finally, CPU family support is also abstracted:
66 | | | `-- SH-2 generic files
68 | | | `-- SH-3 generic files
70 | | `-- SH-4 generic files
72 | `-- This is also broken out per CPU family, so each family can
73 | have their own set of cache/tlb functions.
78 | `-- SH-2 specific headers
80 | `-- SH-3 specific headers
82 `-- SH-4 specific headers
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.
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.
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.
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
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:
118 * arch/sh/boards/vapor/setup.c - Setup code for imaginary board
120 #include <linux/init.h>
121 #include <asm/rtc.h> /* for board_time_init() */
123 const char *get_system_type(void)
125 return "FooTech Vaporboard";
128 int __init platform_setup(void)
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
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.
142 board_time_init = foo_timer_init;
144 /* Start-up imaginary PCI ... */
146 /* And whatever else ... */
151 Our new imaginary board will also have to tie into the machvec in order for it
154 machvec functions fall into a number of categories:
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
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.
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).
173 Adding a new machine is relatively trivial (using vapor as an example):
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
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
184 Note that these prototypes are generated automatically by setting
185 __IO_PREFIX to something sensible. A typical example would be:
187 #define __IO_PREFIX vapor
188 #include <asm/io_generic.h>
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.
193 - Add machine vector definitions to the board's setup.c. At a bare minimum,
194 this must be defined as something like:
196 struct sh_machine_vector mv_vapor __initmv = {
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).
204 3. Hooking into the Build System
205 ================================
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.
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.
214 The first thing to do is to add an entry to arch/sh/Kconfig, under the
220 select Vapor if configuring for a FooTech Vaporboard.
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:
228 machdir-$(CONFIG_SH_VAPOR) += vapor
230 provided that we've placed everything in the arch/sh/boards/vapor/ directory.
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.
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:
245 /* Make sure we're on the FooTech Vaporboard */
246 if (!mach_is_vapor())
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.
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
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.
263 Looking at the 'make help' output, you should now see something like:
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
271 vapor_defconfig - Build for vapor
273 which then allows you to do:
275 $ make ARCH=sh CROSS_COMPILE=sh4-linux- vapor_defconfig vmlinux
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