UnitSizeFactor in nftlmount.c

UnitSizeFactor in nftlmount.c

[Frederic Marmond]

hi all,

I'm trying to make my doc2000 work for booting...
any idea?
;-)

well, in fact, I'm OK in:
nftl_format /dev/mtd0 2097152
(reboot, as all is compiled in kernel, no module)
fdisk /dev/nftla
mkfs -t ext2 /dev/nftla1

it works all right...
but impossible to boot (even with the "lilo-mtd -r /diskonchip").

It seems that when making the fs (mkfs), the firmware is erased.
And when I try to rewrite it, with the DOS util (dformat, given by 
m-sys), it says that I have not enough binary place to put it in.

I'm on 2.4.8, latest mtd-tool from cvs, on a x86/geode SC1200.

any idea would be welcome...

Fred

Re: UnitSizeFactor in nftlmount.c

[Ilguiz Latypov]

Frederic,

On Wed, 29 May 2002, Frederic Marmond wrote:

> i made a "nftl_format /dev/mtd0 2097152", from the lastest CVS from 

I believe the second parameter is a start offset for the NFTL layer.  It 
can be supplied to provide a space for the bootloader.

The error might persist because part of the older NFTL layer still remains 
in the beginning of the chip.

On Wed, 29 May 2002, Frederic Marmond wrote:

> but impossible to boot (even with the "lilo-mtd -r /diskonchip").

As far as I know the lilo patched by M-Sys operates with the boot media
through BIOS calls.  The M-Sys firmware stored in the beginning of the
flash memory hooks up to the BIOS disk interrupt and will emulate a hard
disk.

I haven't tried combining the M-Sys firmware with MTD drivers as they
perform the same task.  The choice of Linux driver for DOC 2000 (M-Sys or
MTD) will affect the choice of the bootloader.  With the M-Sys driver, the 
lilo loader provided by M-Sys will operate with the chip via BIOS.  It 
will make sense to stay with the same firmware when running Linux then.

One of the bootloader DOC2000 BIOS disk interface for the bootloader Using
MTD drivers instead of M-Sys allows to replace the M-Sys firmware because 
the latter is no longer critical for Linux kernel operation.

A patch exists to make another bootloader (GRUB) aware of DOC 2000 and its 
NFTL layer.  Essentially the patch provide a block read interface to the 
NFTL "payload".

The GRUB bootloader can be found at

    http://savannah.gnu.org/projects/grub

and the patch is the

    patches/grub-2002-02-19-doc.patch

file from MTD tree.  The patch contains a short instruction on building 
and installing the firmware in README_DiskOnChip.  See also

    http://lists.infradead.org/pipermail/linux-mtd/2002-May/004811.html

Ilguiz