Difference between BSP and HAL

[Kodali Sivakiran]

Dear All,

So far the linux arch. picture i followed depicts device drivers layer
sitting on top of the hardware abstraction layer (HAL)  and HAL on top of
actual hardware.
And this HAL is board specific and exports interface for the drivers to
access the actual hardware.
I understand MOST of the linux kernel is architecture independent and few
components of it are architecture dependent, like the
<source-tree>/arch/x86/* for a typical desktop PC.
Now should i call this arch. dependent code as HAL. Then What is BSP?? Is
it a part of linux kernel's arch dependent code ?

I thought a bit of googling would help, rather it led to more confusion
than understanding.
Few of them say, device drivers and arch dependent code of kernel is a part
of BSP.

So i thought, lets ask the experts. Please do clarify me on this.

- Difference between BSP and HAL ?
- arch. dependent part of Kernel is a part of BSP ?
- Device drivers are part of BSP?
- can i see the HAL or BSP code in kernel source tree?? if so please direct
me.


Please do forgive me, for bad framing of questions. But i hope the question
is clear.
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