From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Received: from [200.53.172.155] (helo=qis) by pentafluge.infradead.org with smtp (Exim 3.22 #1 (Red Hat Linux)) id 15gvOS-0007pD-00 for ; Tue, 11 Sep 2001 22:48:33 +0100 Message-ID: <20010911205853.21285.qmail@qis> References: <20010911201345.19481.qmail@qis> <20010911182623.15217.qmail@qis> <8583.1000239450@redhat.com> <9772.1000243426@redhat.com> In-Reply-To: <9772.1000243426@redhat.com> From: "Nikolai Vladychevski" To: David Woodhouse Cc: linux-mtd@lists.infradead.org Subject: Re: duplicate DoC millenium with dd Date: Tue, 11 Sep 2001 20:58:53 GMT Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; format=flowed; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Sender: linux-mtd-admin@lists.infradead.org Errors-To: linux-mtd-admin@lists.infradead.org List-Help: List-Post: List-Subscribe: , List-Id: Linux MTD discussion mailing list List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: David Woodhouse writes: > >> > What are you partitioning it for, btw? >> It's a firewall. I place linuxbios & kernel first, then I nftl_format >> /dev/mtd0 0xFIRST_FREE_BLOCK and place a minimal filesystem (cramfs) >> on the rest of the chip..... > > You nftl_format it with the offset, which gives you a block device /dev/ > nftla. Then you use sfdisk rather than mkcramfs -o /dev/nftla. If you only > have one partition, then a partition table is just a waste of space. right! thanks, didn't note it.... > > >> since you say nftl_format removes >> original badblocks table M-Systems put on the chip at fabrication >> time, I kinda dislike this util..... > > It's now better than it was. And you shouldn't need to use it more than > once, if the total size of your LinuxBIOS and kernel don't change (or if > you left enough space for a little bit of expansion). yes, this is the problem... right now I'm leaving 1 Meg for the linuxBIOS and kernel and right now there is left as little as 40 K bytes free space of that meg. I beleive the kernel will grow very soon and 40 K will not be enough. Allocating more space, 1.5Meg for example seems to be a huge waste of space. I think I will have to nftl_format with a variable offset every time I do an update..... you say nftl_format is better, but how much? If I update the software on the chip once a week (it's an automatic update via remote server), will it survive for 2 years without errors, for example ? > >> is there any way to avoid nftl_format and boot my cramfs from /dev/ >> mtdblockX or /dev/mtd0 with an 0xXXXX offset or something like this? > > Not out of the box. It's trivial to do that though, by using the mtd > version of partitions, which makes it look like two (or more) separate MTD > devices. Wow! that sounds cool! I have to try it, but would linuxBIOS conflict with it? Nikolai