From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Return-Path: Received: from e35.co.us.ibm.com (e35.co.us.ibm.com [32.97.110.153]) (using TLSv1 with cipher DHE-RSA-AES256-SHA (256/256 bits)) (Client CN "e35.co.us.ibm.com", Issuer "Equifax" (verified OK)) by ozlabs.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 46B65DDF8E for ; Wed, 10 Oct 2007 03:15:51 +1000 (EST) Received: from d03relay02.boulder.ibm.com (d03relay02.boulder.ibm.com [9.17.195.227]) by e35.co.us.ibm.com (8.13.8/8.13.8) with ESMTP id l99HFmYG029321 for ; Tue, 9 Oct 2007 13:15:49 -0400 Received: from d03av02.boulder.ibm.com (d03av02.boulder.ibm.com [9.17.195.168]) by d03relay02.boulder.ibm.com (8.13.8/8.13.8/NCO v8.5) with ESMTP id l99HFm5E381440 for ; Tue, 9 Oct 2007 11:15:48 -0600 Received: from d03av02.boulder.ibm.com (loopback [127.0.0.1]) by d03av02.boulder.ibm.com (8.12.11.20060308/8.13.3) with ESMTP id l99HFmUv017490 for ; Tue, 9 Oct 2007 11:15:48 -0600 Date: Tue, 9 Oct 2007 12:15:47 -0500 To: Geoff Levand Subject: Re: [patch v2] PS3: Add os-area database routines Message-ID: <20071009171547.GH4350@austin.ibm.com> References: <20071006213542.311447584@am.sony.com> <20071006213542.954029915@am.sony.com> <470AD44C.5080305@am.sony.com> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii In-Reply-To: <470AD44C.5080305@am.sony.com> From: linas@austin.ibm.com (Linas Vepstas) Cc: linuxppc-dev@ozlabs.org, paulus@samba.org List-Id: Linux on PowerPC Developers Mail List List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , On Mon, Oct 08, 2007 at 06:07:24PM -0700, Geoff Levand wrote: > Subject: PS3: Add os-area database routines > > Add support for a simple tagged database in the PS3 flash rom > os-area. The database allows the flash rom os-area to be shared > between a bootloader and installed operating systems. The > application ps3-flash-util or the library libps3-utils from the > ps3-utils package can be used for userspace database operations. Perhaps I missed the discussion; but .. out of general curiosity, what is the relation between this and the ppc_md.nvram_* system? I note that pseries, powermac, chrp, celleb implement the nvram calls, but cell and ps3 do not. So clearly, whatever this is, its not layered on top of nvram? FWIW, I don't quite understand the nvram system; it seems to have partitions; one part is an "os area", and a chuck of it is set up as a file system. So I'm wondering -- wouldn't the DB os-area be "generically interesting" to other ppowerpc platforms? Maybe even other arches? And why isn't this built on top of the nvram structure? ... etc? --linas