Working on u-boot Recovery documentation (some guidance please)

[TRS-80]

I am trying to convert my recent experience into something more generalized, in order to improve documentation.

 

I already split off into a new page of docs Recovery, now I would like to add a new section to that page about manually replacing u-boot.

 

In my case, sunxi was pretty easy, but trying to generalize this it gets more complex.  I am not too familiar, so I researched for a while today and I think I have some idea, but before I start writing I want to make sure I am recommending the right approach.

 

Basically I think I will recommend in 2 parts:

 

1. Explain how to extract u-boot from deb package after downloading from e.g. https://apt.armbian.com/pool/main/l/linux-u-boot-BOARD-RELEASE.

 

2. Search in https://github.com/armbian/build/tree/master/config/sources/families for `write_uboot_platform` function, out of which you will get parameters for dd like where to flash to (seek=), etc.

 

Problem with #2 as I see it, some of them are slightly more complex like ODROID-XU4 for instance:

 

dd if=$1/bl1.bin.hardkernel of=$device seek=$signed_bl1_position conv=fsync > /dev/null 2>&1
dd if=$1/bl2.bin.hardkernel.720k_uboot of=$device seek=$bl2_position conv=fsync > /dev/null 2>&1
dd if=$1/u-boot-dtb.bin of=$device bs=512 seek=$uboot_position conv=fsync > /dev/null 2>&1
dd if=$1/tzsw.bin.hardkernel of=$device seek=$tzsw_position conv=fsync > /dev/null 2>&1
dd if=/dev/zero of=$device seek=$env_position bs=512 count=32 conv=fsync > /dev/null 2>&1

 

Also some are inside include directory there.

 

I am trying to keep this as general and simple as possible (for wide audience), so I started to wonder if this is the right approach.

 

I start to wonder, instead of docs, if I should write some script that figure out all parameters and do it automatically.  But maybe it exists already?  Somehow adapt some existing script, but instead of working from a running system, to run from a recovery context?

 

Now I am not sure what is the best approach.  Any feedback would be appreciated.  I am willing to do the leg work, just need a bit of guidance.