linux-stable/Documentation/arm
Linus Torvalds eb3d3ec567 Merge branch 'for-linus' of git://ftp.arm.linux.org.uk/~rmk/linux-arm into next
Pull ARM updates from Russell King:

 - Major clean-up of the L2 cache support code.  The existing mess was
   becoming rather unmaintainable through all the additions that others
   have done over time.  This turns it into a much nicer structure, and
   implements a few performance improvements as well.

 - Clean up some of the CP15 control register tweaks for alignment
   support, moving some code and data into alignment.c

 - DMA properties for ARM, from Santosh and reviewed by DT people.  This
   adds DT properties to specify bus translations we can't discover
   automatically, and to indicate whether devices are coherent.

 - Hibernation support for ARM

 - Make ftrace work with read-only text in modules

 - add suspend support for PJ4B CPUs

 - rework interrupt masking for undefined instruction handling, which
   allows us to enable interrupts earlier in the handling of these
   exceptions.

 - support for big endian page tables

 - fix stacktrace support to exclude stacktrace functions from the
   trace, and add save_stack_trace_regs() implementation so that kprobes
   can record stack traces.

 - Add support for the Cortex-A17 CPU.

 - Remove last vestiges of ARM710 support.

 - Removal of ARM "meminfo" structure, finally converting us solely to
   memblock to handle the early memory initialisation.

* 'for-linus' of git://ftp.arm.linux.org.uk/~rmk/linux-arm: (142 commits)
  ARM: ensure C page table setup code follows assembly code (part II)
  ARM: ensure C page table setup code follows assembly code
  ARM: consolidate last remaining open-coded alignment trap enable
  ARM: remove global cr_no_alignment
  ARM: remove CPU_CP15 conditional from alignment.c
  ARM: remove unused adjust_cr() function
  ARM: move "noalign" command line option to alignment.c
  ARM: provide common method to clear bits in CPU control register
  ARM: 8025/1: Get rid of meminfo
  ARM: 8060/1: mm: allow sub-architectures to override PCI I/O memory type
  ARM: 8066/1: correction for ARM patch 8031/2
  ARM: 8049/1: ftrace/add save_stack_trace_regs() implementation
  ARM: 8065/1: remove last use of CONFIG_CPU_ARM710
  ARM: 8062/1: Modify ldrt fixup handler to re-execute the userspace instruction
  ARM: 8047/1: rwsem: use asm-generic rwsem implementation
  ARM: l2c: trial at enabling some Cortex-A9 optimisations
  ARM: l2c: add warnings for stuff modifying aux_ctrl register values
  ARM: l2c: print a warning with L2C-310 caches if the cache size is modified
  ARM: l2c: remove old .set_debug method
  ARM: l2c: kill L2X0_AUX_CTRL_MASK before anyone else makes use of this
  ...
2014-06-05 15:57:04 -07:00
..
Marvell ARM: berlin: add Marvell Armada 1500 pro to Marvell doc 2014-05-19 22:52:05 +02:00
msm
nwfpe
OMAP doc: Fix typo in doucmentations 2013-07-25 12:34:15 +02:00
pxa
SA1100
Samsung gpio: samsung: Update documentation 2012-09-07 06:40:29 +09:00
Samsung-S3C24XX gpio: samsung: Update documentation 2014-01-07 19:00:59 +01:00
SH-Mobile
SPEAr Viresh has moved 2012-06-20 14:39:36 -07:00
sti ARM: STi: Add STiH407 SoC support 2014-05-17 10:22:30 +02:00
sunxi Documentation: sunxi: Update Allwinner SoC documentation 2013-10-11 21:24:41 +02:00
VFP
00-INDEX doc: arm: add UEFI support documentation 2014-04-30 19:57:01 +01:00
Booting ARM: 7824/1: update advice on kernel, initramfs and FDT load address. 2013-08-25 17:09:47 +01:00
cluster-pm-race-avoidance.txt ARM: mcpm: introduce helpers for platform coherency exit/setup 2013-04-24 10:37:00 -04:00
firmware.txt ARM: Add interface for registering and calling firmware-specific operations 2013-04-09 01:52:06 +09:00
Interrupts
IXP4xx Documentation/arm/IXP4xx fix a typo 2013-06-05 16:24:59 +02:00
kernel_mode_neon.txt ARM: 7825/1: document the use of NEON in kernel mode 2013-08-25 17:09:48 +01:00
kernel_user_helpers.txt
mem_alignment
memory.txt ARM: 8066/1: correction for ARM patch 8031/2 2014-06-01 01:13:18 +01:00
Netwinder
Porting
README
Setup
swp_emulation
tcm.txt
uefi.txt doc: arm: add UEFI support documentation 2014-04-30 19:57:01 +01:00
vlocks.txt ARM: mcpm: Add baremetal voting mutexes 2013-04-24 10:37:01 -04:00

			   ARM Linux 2.6
			   =============

    Please check <ftp://ftp.arm.linux.org.uk/pub/armlinux> for
    updates.

Compilation of kernel
---------------------

  In order to compile ARM Linux, you will need a compiler capable of
  generating ARM ELF code with GNU extensions.  GCC 3.3 is known to be
  a good compiler.  Fortunately, you needn't guess.  The kernel will report
  an error if your compiler is a recognized offender.

  To build ARM Linux natively, you shouldn't have to alter the ARCH = line
  in the top level Makefile.  However, if you don't have the ARM Linux ELF
  tools installed as default, then you should change the CROSS_COMPILE
  line as detailed below.

  If you wish to cross-compile, then alter the following lines in the top
  level make file:

    ARCH = <whatever>
	with
    ARCH = arm

	and

    CROSS_COMPILE=
	to
    CROSS_COMPILE=<your-path-to-your-compiler-without-gcc>
	eg.
    CROSS_COMPILE=arm-linux-

  Do a 'make config', followed by 'make Image' to build the kernel 
  (arch/arm/boot/Image).  A compressed image can be built by doing a 
  'make zImage' instead of 'make Image'.


Bug reports etc
---------------

  Please send patches to the patch system.  For more information, see
  http://www.arm.linux.org.uk/developer/patches/info.php Always include some
  explanation as to what the patch does and why it is needed.

  Bug reports should be sent to linux-arm-kernel@lists.arm.linux.org.uk,
  or submitted through the web form at
  http://www.arm.linux.org.uk/developer/ 

  When sending bug reports, please ensure that they contain all relevant
  information, eg. the kernel messages that were printed before/during
  the problem, what you were doing, etc.


Include files
-------------

  Several new include directories have been created under include/asm-arm,
  which are there to reduce the clutter in the top-level directory.  These
  directories, and their purpose is listed below:

   arch-*	machine/platform specific header files
   hardware	driver-internal ARM specific data structures/definitions
   mach		descriptions of generic ARM to specific machine interfaces
   proc-*	processor dependent header files (currently only two
		categories)


Machine/Platform support
------------------------

  The ARM tree contains support for a lot of different machine types.  To
  continue supporting these differences, it has become necessary to split
  machine-specific parts by directory.  For this, the machine category is
  used to select which directories and files get included (we will use
  $(MACHINE) to refer to the category)

  To this end, we now have arch/arm/mach-$(MACHINE) directories which are
  designed to house the non-driver files for a particular machine (eg, PCI,
  memory management, architecture definitions etc).  For all future
  machines, there should be a corresponding arch/arm/mach-$(MACHINE)/include/mach
  directory.


Modules
-------

  Although modularisation is supported (and required for the FP emulator),
  each module on an ARM2/ARM250/ARM3 machine when is loaded will take
  memory up to the next 32k boundary due to the size of the pages.
  Therefore, is modularisation on these machines really worth it?

  However, ARM6 and up machines allow modules to take multiples of 4k, and
  as such Acorn RiscPCs and other architectures using these processors can
  make good use of modularisation.


ADFS Image files
----------------

  You can access image files on your ADFS partitions by mounting the ADFS
  partition, and then using the loopback device driver.  You must have
  losetup installed.

  Please note that the PCEmulator DOS partitions have a partition table at
  the start, and as such, you will have to give '-o offset' to losetup.


Request to developers
---------------------

  When writing device drivers which include a separate assembler file, please
  include it in with the C file, and not the arch/arm/lib directory.  This
  allows the driver to be compiled as a loadable module without requiring
  half the code to be compiled into the kernel image.

  In general, try to avoid using assembler unless it is really necessary.  It
  makes drivers far less easy to port to other hardware.


ST506 hard drives
-----------------

  The ST506 hard drive controllers seem to be working fine (if a little
  slowly).  At the moment they will only work off the controllers on an
  A4x0's motherboard, but for it to work off a Podule just requires
  someone with a podule to add the addresses for the IRQ mask and the
  HDC base to the source.

  As of 31/3/96 it works with two drives (you should get the ADFS
  *configure harddrive set to 2). I've got an internal 20MB and a great
  big external 5.25" FH 64MB drive (who could ever want more :-) ).

  I've just got 240K/s off it (a dd with bs=128k); thats about half of what
  RiscOS gets; but it's a heck of a lot better than the 50K/s I was getting
  last week :-)

  Known bug: Drive data errors can cause a hang; including cases where
  the controller has fixed the error using ECC. (Possibly ONLY
  in that case...hmm).


1772 Floppy
-----------
  This also seems to work OK, but hasn't been stressed much lately.  It
  hasn't got any code for disc change detection in there at the moment which
  could be a bit of a problem!  Suggestions on the correct way to do this
  are welcome.


CONFIG_MACH_ and CONFIG_ARCH_
-----------------------------
  A change was made in 2003 to the macro names for new machines.
  Historically, CONFIG_ARCH_ was used for the bonafide architecture,
  e.g. SA1100, as well as implementations of the architecture,
  e.g. Assabet.  It was decided to change the implementation macros
  to read CONFIG_MACH_ for clarity.  Moreover, a retroactive fixup has
  not been made because it would complicate patching.

  Previous registrations may be found online.

    <http://www.arm.linux.org.uk/developer/machines/>

Kernel entry (head.S)
--------------------------
  The initial entry into the kernel is via head.S, which uses machine
  independent code.  The machine is selected by the value of 'r1' on
  entry, which must be kept unique.

  Due to the large number of machines which the ARM port of Linux provides
  for, we have a method to manage this which ensures that we don't end up
  duplicating large amounts of code.

  We group machine (or platform) support code into machine classes.  A
  class typically based around one or more system on a chip devices, and
  acts as a natural container around the actual implementations.  These
  classes are given directories - arch/arm/mach-<class> and
  arch/arm/mach-<class> - which contain the source files to/include/mach
  support the machine class.  This directories also contain any machine
  specific supporting code.

  For example, the SA1100 class is based upon the SA1100 and SA1110 SoC
  devices, and contains the code to support the way the on-board and off-
  board devices are used, or the device is setup, and provides that
  machine specific "personality."

  This fine-grained machine specific selection is controlled by the machine
  type ID, which acts both as a run-time and a compile-time code selection
  method.

  You can register a new machine via the web site at:

    <http://www.arm.linux.org.uk/developer/machines/>

---
Russell King (15/03/2004)