Re: Booting Linux 2.6 with DiskOnChip 2000 TSOP (INFTL)

Brian O'Dell
2005-06-29T19:23:12Z

Andrew Schultz wrote:

> Hello,
>
> I've spent a few days attempting to get a new 256MB DiskOnChip 2000
> TSOP working properly with Linux 2.6.11. I have been using the MTD
> drivers that come with the vanilla version of the kernel and so far I
> can properly dformat, fdisk, format, and copy the file system so
> everything is cool with the kernel driver.
>
> However, all my attempts to get grub/lilo/docboot to work in booting
> of the DOC have been in vain. My first question is does the current
> grub patch actually have support for the TSOP (and INFTL devices in
> general)? I found two previous posts in 2002 and 2003
> (http://lists.infradead.org/pipermail/linux-mtd/2003-November/008922.html
> and
> http://lists.infradead.org/pipermail/linux-mtd/2003-April/007487.html)
> which seem to be inconclusive about the current support of INFTL
> devices and grub.
>
I am in a very similar situation. I can read and write to the DOC 2000
tsop, but no luck booting to it.

This post by dwmw2 is relevant to our troubles:
http://lists.infradead.org/pipermail/linux-mtd/2004-December/011098.html

My thinking is that GRUB is out, and doesn't currently work for INFTL
devices. I could be dead wrong. My understanding is that normal grub
needs to understand the filesystem it is loading the kernel from. The
patched grub understands NFTL, but not INFTL.

I don't think that LILO has this limitation. I think LILO just loads
the kernel from a given address, it does not understand filesystems, so
it may work. I haven't tried LILO yet.

-bto