On 9/23/2015 2:18 AM, Rick Mann wrote:
> What are the "universal" DTBs, like cape-universal-00A0.dtbo or 
> univ-emmc-00A0.dtbo?

The "universal" DTBs are intended to allow user-mode changes to the
pin configurations at run-time.  This is very handy on kernels that do
not support dynamic changes to the device tree (ie: 3.14), but is also
useful for 3.8 and 4.x kernels with cape manager support.

The idea is basically that you enable most of the available hardware
(UARTs, PWM, GPIO, etc) and use the pinmux helper kernel module to
make low-level pin settings available via sysfs.  That way, you can
modify the pin functions without having to load a new DT overlay.

This allows some combinations that would be "illegal" or hard to
implement without writing your own custom device tree (which is
non-trivial for most folks).  For example, if you need a UART but only
require the Rx line and want to use the Tx line as a GPIO, you'd
typically have to craft your own custom device tree.  With the
universal overlay, you can just set the Rx line to the UART mode, and
the Tx line to GPIO, since both functions are already enabled and the
pinmux helper module lets you select the pin mode at run-time.

-- 
Charles Steinkuehler
[email protected]

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