Simplify NuttX initialization

[acassis]

Currently NuttX has many initialization options each one used for some specific case, but at least CONFIG_NSH_ARCHINIT that is used to do drivers initialization when NSH is enabled could be removed in favor of some generic option like BOARD_LATE_INITIALIZATION that will work for all applications (inclusive to NSH itself).

I raised this question some time ago here: #10821 but didn't heard anything from my peers.

But now that @0528Mike came with this PR: #11306 we could fix this issue merging CONFIG_NSH_ARCHINIT and BOARD_LATE_INITIALIZATION to avoid issues like this faced from a NuttX user: #10821 and for many people that want to user their application as ENTRYPOINT on NuttX.

[xiaoxiang781216]

Yes, I think the suggestion is reasonable.

[raiden00pl]

+1 from me

[raiden00pl]

hi, are we trying to solve this problem? Does anyone have any objections to removing CONFIG_NSH_ARCHINIT ?
This option is slowly starting to cause problems in the case of PCI devices. Some OS components that have a PCI based virtio backend need to be initialized in the correct order (e.g. coredump with PCI based virtblk device), which is impossible to achieve with CONFIG_NSH_ARCHINIT.

[xiaoxiang781216]

NSH_ARCHINIT can be achieved in board initializiton code, so it could be removed to avoid the confusion.

[gregory-nutt]

NSH_ARCHINIT can be achieved in board initializiton code, so it could be removed to avoid the confusion.

Agreed. But removing CONFIG_NSH_ARCHINIT will be a very big job because it is used by 1246 board configurations.

$ find boards -name defconfig | xargs grep CONFIG_NSH_ARCHINIT=y | wc -
   1246    1246  100027 

That would be a LOT of breakage!

[raiden00pl]

Yes, it seems like a lot of work. But it will only get worse over time as new boards come in.

We can automate most of the work. What we need to do is:

1. remove all CONFIG_NSH_ARCHINIT from configs
2. add CONFIG_BOARD_LATE_INITIALIZATION to all modified configs
3. clean up after removing CONFIG_NSH_ARCHINIT.

Is there anything more to do ?

The last step most likely must be done manually. But there are "only" 115 files that need modification:

$ find . -type f ! -name "defconfig" -exec grep -l "CONFIG_NSH_ARCHINIT" {} + | wc                                                                                                                              
    115     115    6899

[gregory-nutt]

Is there anything more to do ?

I think a proper solution would be the complete remove of the archi-init logic, not just disabling it. I think that would cause a lot of confusion in the future.

This would require removal the the BOARD_CTRL log, removal of the arch-init entry point to the board initialization logic, and removal of all calls to the removed BOARD_CTRL logic.

[raiden00pl]

It makes sense. Such a change deserve major version increase during release, as this is substantial change for users. Probably this issue is a good milestone for NuttX 13.0.0 release