[U-Boot-Users] (no subject)

[U-Boot-Users] (no subject)

[C. Michael Sundius]

Hi,

sorry to be a pest,  A while ago I posted a message asking about 
support for JFFS2 within U-boot.

I didn't get a response so I'm wondering if anyone uses this feature? 
in reading the code, it seems
as though there are many comments indicating that the support is a 
"less than elegant" implementation.
(to be more specific they say have a paper bag ready in case you have 
to puke :]

that said, does anyone use this feature.. it seems to me that it is 
very useful to have and many would
want it.. on the other hand I know that the JFFS2 people have moved 
forward and don't support older
kernels and thus maybe this code is out of date.. or (more likely) my 
kernel is out of date.

anyway, if anyone who has some experience with using JFFS2 in concert 
w/ u-boot could respond,
I would be very grateful

btw: the problems I am having seem to be related to reading symbolic 
links.

thanks for you help



C Michael Sundius
Solico Group LLC
232 Nevada St
San Francisco, CA 94110
msundius at sundius.com
(415)608-0121

[U-Boot-Users] (no subject)

[Scott McNutt]

Hi Michael,

> anyway, if anyone who has some experience with using JFFS2
 > in concert w/ u-boot could respond,

I use it ... on several boards ... MPC8270 & Nios-II ...
with Bluecat Linux (PPC) and uClinux (Nios-II).

It works ... without fuss or problems for me :-)

Regards,
--Scott

[U-Boot-Users] (no subject)

[C. Michael Sundius]

scott,

what kernel do you use? what version of jffs?


On Mar 31, 2005, at 2:52 PM, Scott McNutt wrote:

> Hi Michael,
>
>> anyway, if anyone who has some experience with using JFFS2
> > in concert w/ u-boot could respond,
>
> I use it ... on several boards ... MPC8270 & Nios-II ...
> with Bluecat Linux (PPC) and uClinux (Nios-II).
>
> It works ... without fuss or problems for me :-)
>
> Regards,
> --Scott
>
>
C Michael Sundius
Brown Bear Realty
303 Cortland Ave
San Francisco, CA 94110
(415)608-0121
realtor at sundius.com

[U-Boot-Users] (no subject)

[Wolfgang Denk]

repl: bad addresses:
	C.Michael Sundius <msundius@sundius.com> -- no at-sign after local-part (Sundius)


FIX YOUR MAILER!!!!



In message <0a998cc8d476962de3099ffa36976db3@sundius.com> you wrote:
> 
> what kernel do you use? what version of jffs?

No. This is useless. Don't ask for a  list  of  50  different  kernel
versions with 30 different versions of MTD code which are all wokring
in any combination.

Provide some useful, reproducable information yourself.


Wolfgang Denk

-- 
Software Engineering:  Embedded and Realtime Systems,  Embedded Linux
Phone: (+49)-8142-66989-10 Fax: (+49)-8142-66989-80 Email: wd at denx.de
A stone was placed at a ford in a river with the inscription:
"When this stone is covered it is dangerous to ford here."

[U-Boot-Users] JFFS2 support - was: (no subject)

[Wolfgang Denk]

repl: bad addresses:
	C.Michael Sundius <msundius@sundius.com> -- no at-sign after local-part (Sundius)

Please configure your mailer correctly.  If  you  use  special  chars
in the name ('.') you are supposed to quote it.


AND PLEASE PROVIDE A USEFUL SUBJECT!!!!


In message <6b2c38e74085edfd4af93cd2f311e7ee@sundius.com> you wrote:
> 
> sorry to be a pest,  A while ago I posted a message asking about 
> support for JFFS2 within U-boot.
> 
> I didn't get a response so I'm wondering if anyone uses this feature? 

Yes, we are. Some of our customers are.

> in reading the code, it seems
> as though there are many comments indicating that the support is a 
> "less than elegant" implementation.

Feel free to improve it ...

> that said, does anyone use this feature.. it seems to me that it is 
> very useful to have and many would

Guess why it has been added to U-Boot?

> anyway, if anyone who has some experience with using JFFS2 in concert 
> w/ u-boot could respond,

A precise question is the prerequisite to any useful response.

> btw: the problems I am having seem to be related to reading symbolic 
> links.

Can you be a _bit_ more explicit? What is your test case? What works,
and what does  not  work?  Are  you  on  NOR  or  NAND  flash?  Which
architecture?  How  did  you create the JFFS2 filesystem? How did you
install it? Which version of the Linux kernel is this? Which  version
of MTD code is in your Linux kernel tree?

Best regards,

Wolfgang Denk

-- 
Software Engineering:  Embedded and Realtime Systems,  Embedded Linux
Phone: (+49)-8142-66989-10 Fax: (+49)-8142-66989-80 Email: wd at denx.de
Teenagers are people who express a burning desire to be different by
dressing exactly alike.
There are some strings. They're just not attached.

[U-Boot-Users] JFFS2 support - was: (no subject)

[C. Michael Sundius]

Sorry about the lack of subject. my bad. I intended to tack on the 
subject
of my prior message.

as for my question, I'll reprint my original post:

----------------------------------------
I am using the 2.4.20 kernel and U-boot version 1.1.2. It seems as
  though
  while my kernel can read the jffs2 filesystem fine. u-boot seems to
  have some
  trouble when reading (ls) of symbolic links..

  This is pretty serious since we use busybox and that makes use of lots
  of links for
  all of the common user/shell commands.

  has anyone else seen this problem? is there a patch that fixes this? Is
  it because
  the version of jffs2 that u-boot was made to work with is different
  than the one
  that I have in my 2.4.20 kernel?
--------------------------------

more specifically, I see 3 behaviors:
1) when I do "ls", and the function comes upon a symbolic link, it 
tries to follow the link. the link
name comes out fine, but the target of the link is garbage (and thus 
sometimes crashes u-boot -
likely a  buffer overrun when printing the name)

2) ls also sometimes prints the contents of a directory twice so if bin 
had files:
	a, b, c, d
it would print:

	# ls
		a
		b
		c
		a
		b
		c
		d
I am not sure if this is related to the fact that my file system has 
lots of symbolic links (I use busybox)
or b/c of some other problem w/ the jffs structure (which I may or 
maynot have botched in some way)

3) when I do FSLOAD command, it seems to intermitantly go off into the 
weeds and crash u-boot.
I have not quite qualified this behavior yet. but I'm working on it.

I don't doubt its something that I'm doing wrong or screwing up.. I 
*never* doubt *that*.. but initially I was just
looking for verification that this code is being used is in generally 
working order (dispite what the comments
say).

one thing I also didn't mention our hardware has 2 variants
one that uses regular nor flash, and others use nand flash which are 
not mapped in to memory.
and thus -i am just realizing- code (like that that looks for the 
target of a sym link in
the func dump_inode() ) that reads data from the device and then 
assumes is a pointer to the device
instead of a pointer to a buffer might be incorrect:

		                unsigned char *src = (unsigned char *) (&i[1]);

if i is an inode that was read by get_node_mem(), might crash if the 
flash is not a memory mapped device.
problem is, that we're seeing this problem on the board w/ the memory 
mapped device..

well if I do find that this is a problem and if I find others I'll 
update you all ...

well, thanks for any help you can give.
Mike

On Mar 31, 2005, at 3:05 PM, Wolfgang Denk wrote:

>
> repl: bad addresses:
> 	C.Michael Sundius <msundius@sundius.com> -- no at-sign after 
> local-part (Sundius)
>
> Please configure your mailer correctly.  If  you  use  special  chars
> in the name ('.') you are supposed to quote it.
>
>
> AND PLEASE PROVIDE A USEFUL SUBJECT!!!!
>
>
> In message <6b2c38e74085edfd4af93cd2f311e7ee@sundius.com> you wrote:
>>
>> sorry to be a pest,  A while ago I posted a message asking about
>> support for JFFS2 within U-boot.
>>
>> I didn't get a response so I'm wondering if anyone uses this feature?
>
> Yes, we are. Some of our customers are.
>
>> in reading the code, it seems
>> as though there are many comments indicating that the support is a
>> "less than elegant" implementation.
>
> Feel free to improve it ...
>
>> that said, does anyone use this feature.. it seems to me that it is
>> very useful to have and many would
>
> Guess why it has been added to U-Boot?
>
>> anyway, if anyone who has some experience with using JFFS2 in concert
>> w/ u-boot could respond,
>
> A precise question is the prerequisite to any useful response.
>
>> btw: the problems I am having seem to be related to reading symbolic
>> links.
>
> Can you be a _bit_ more explicit? What is your test case? What works,
> and what does  not  work?  Are  you  on  NOR  or  NAND  flash?  Which
> architecture?  How  did  you create the JFFS2 filesystem? How did you
> install it? Which version of the Linux kernel is this? Which  version
> of MTD code is in your Linux kernel tree?
>
> Best regards,
>
> Wolfgang Denk
>
> -- 
> Software Engineering:  Embedded and Realtime Systems,  Embedded Linux
> Phone: (+49)-8142-66989-10 Fax: (+49)-8142-66989-80 Email: wd at denx.de
> Teenagers are people who express a burning desire to be different by
> dressing exactly alike.
> There are some strings. They're just not attached.
>
>
C Michael Sundius
Solico Group LLC
232 Nevada St
San Francisco, CA 94110
msundius at sundius.com
(415)608-0121
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[U-Boot-Users] Re: JFFS2 support - was: (no subject)

[Martin Egholm Nielsen]

Hi,

> AND PLEASE PROVIDE A USEFUL SUBJECT!!!!
Hear!

>>sorry to be a pest,  A while ago I posted a message asking about 
>>support for JFFS2 within U-boot.
>>I didn't get a response so I'm wondering if anyone uses this feature? 
> Yes, we are. Some of our customers are.
I am, as well - with ppc-kernel 2.4.20 patched with a newer mtd-code, 
though.
However, I know that in U-Boot version 1.1.2 and prior there is a "bug" 
writing jffs2-images if the device has bad blocks.

>>in reading the code, it seems
>>as though there are many comments indicating that the support is a 
>>"less than elegant" implementation.
> Feel free to improve it ...
:-)

>>btw: the problems I am having seem to be related to reading symbolic 
>>links.
I haven't tried that, sorry...

// Martin

[U-Boot-Users] JFFS2 support - was: (no subject)

[C Michael Sundius]

Wolfgang,

thank you for being patient.


On Apr 3, 2005, at 1:51 PM, Wolfgang Denk wrote:
> If you didn't update it yourself this just meand that it's old.  Very
> old. Very, very old indeed.
>
agreed. So I take that to be read as: go update the mtd code
manually, overwriting the old drivers/mtd and include/mtd directories

if so, what version of mtd should I use.. I understand that currently
the mtd guys are not supporting ancient kernels (2.4.20)

btw: I already know I should update my kernel... I've already been there
w/ my client, they can't upset the apple cart yet.

>> I gave you the exact u-boot commands that I use:
>> 	"ls"
>
> ...bot you didn't show the real contents of the directory  which  was
> causing the problem.

anyway I've already resolved this by not printing out the destination of
the link....

>
>>> Finally, I asked you  how  youy  create  and  how  you  install  your
>>> filesystem image.
>>>
>> - I created the file system on my host (a x86 box) using mkfs.jffs2:
>>        # mkfs.jffs2 --version
>>        mkfs.jffs2: revision 1.39
>>   Though you should not take this as an indication of the version of
>> mtd/jffs on my kernel since
>>   monta vista does not ship the (mtd) host tools  along with their
>> kernel. I doug that mkfs.jffs2 out
>>   from somewhere a while ago and I don't remember where.
>
> For the last time (before I give up finally): and how did you install
> that image to your flash partition? Under Linux or under U-Boot?  How
> exactly?
Ah, sorry I see what you are getting at.. I use U-Boot to write the 
jffs2 image
that I create on my PC host. I tftp the image, and then use cp.b to the 
address
that is my flash address space.

I use cp.b since it does not work doing simply cp.. because of the word 
length...

I have also verified (in u-boot) that the data that was copied into 
flash
with no errors. (cmp.b command).

so here is the exact output from my terminal :

CENTILLIUM-IAD # run progjffs
Trying CENTILLIUM ETH.
Ethernet Switch Enabled!!
Using CENTILLIUM ETH. device
TFTP from server 192.168.1.19; our IP address is 192.168.1.1
Filename 'jffs.1.0'.
Load address: 0x80800000
Loading: 
#################################################################
          
#################################################################
          
#################################################################
          
#################################################################
          
#################################################################
          
#################################################################
          #####################
done
Bytes transferred = 2104108 (201b2c hex)
Erase Flash from 0xad040000 to 0xad3bffff in Bank # 1
Erased 56 sectors
Copy to Flash... done
CENTILLIUM-IAD #

--------
where progjffs is a environment variable:

jffsfile=jffs.1.0
progjffs=tftp 0x80800000 $(jffsfile);erase 0xad040000 0xad3bffff;cp.b 
0x80800000 0xad040000 $(filesize)

------------
sorry this took so long to get back to you on.. I was not in my office 
earlier this week and I *really am* trying
to give you exactly what you are asking for :]  thanks again for your 
patience and help!

Mike


C Michael Sundius
Brown Bear Realty
303 Cortland Ave
San Francisco, CA 94110
(415)608-0121
realtor at sundius.com

[U-Boot-Users] Re: JFFS2 support - was: (no subject)

[Martin Egholm Nielsen]

Hi Michael,

>> If you didn't update it yourself this just meand that it's old.  Very
>> old. Very, very old indeed.

> agreed. So I take that to be read as: go update the mtd code
> manually, overwriting the old drivers/mtd and include/mtd directories
> 
> if so, what version of mtd should I use.. I understand that currently
> the mtd guys are not supporting ancient kernels (2.4.20)
They no longer support 2.4 kernels, at all:

"As of March 2005 we dropped Linux 2.4 support from CVS head"
(http://www.linux-mtd.infradead.org/source.html#kernelversions)

however, David still backports some jffs2 stuff to the 2.4 branch:

"I _am_ maintaining JFFS2 in the 2.4 kernel, even to the extent of
backporting the __wait_on_freeing_inode() stuff from 2.6 to fix the
problems with simultaneous read_inode() and clear_inode(). But I'm not
adding new features, so NAND flash isn't supported in 2.4."
(http://lists.infradead.org/pipermail/linux-mtd/2005-March/012088.html)

>> For the last time (before I give up finally): and how did you install
>> that image to your flash partition? Under Linux or under U-Boot?  How
>> exactly?
> Ah, sorry I see what you are getting at.. I use U-Boot to write the 
> jffs2 image
> that I create on my PC host. I tftp the image, and then use cp.b to the 
> address
> that is my flash address space.
> I use cp.b since it does not work doing simply cp.. because of the word 
> length...
I guess this is NOR flash? Otherwise you should use "nand.write.jffs2", 
handling bad blocks (broken currently).

// Martin

[U-Boot-Users] Re: JFFS2 support - was: (no subject)

[Wolfgang Denk]

In message <d3432h$3rj$1@sea.gmane.org> you wrote:
> 
> > if so, what version of mtd should I use.. I understand that currently
> > the mtd guys are not supporting ancient kernels (2.4.20)
> They no longer support 2.4 kernels, at all:

Feel free to have a look at our 2.4.25 tree :-)

But this is off topic here.


Wolfgang Denk

-- 
Software Engineering:  Embedded and Realtime Systems,  Embedded Linux
Phone: (+49)-8142-66989-10 Fax: (+49)-8142-66989-80 Email: wd at denx.de
That Microsoft, the Trabant of the operating  system  world,  may  be
glancing  over the Berlin Wall at the Audis and BMWs and Mercedes. In
their own universe Trabants and Ladas were mainstream too...
                                                   -- Evan Leibovitch

[U-Boot-Users] Re: JFFS2 support - was: (no subject)

[Martin Egholm Nielsen]

Hi Wolfgang,

>>>if so, what version of mtd should I use.. I understand that currently
>>>the mtd guys are not supporting ancient kernels (2.4.20)
>>They no longer support 2.4 kernels, at all:
> Feel free to have a look at our 2.4.25 tree :-)
Do you feel like defining "our"? linuxppc? denx?
I'm not entirely in to where you contribute...

BR,
  Martin

[U-Boot-Users] Re: JFFS2 support - was: (no subject)

[Wolfgang Denk]

In message <d388fk$609$1@sea.gmane.org> you wrote:
> 
> >>>if so, what version of mtd should I use.. I understand that currently
> >>>the mtd guys are not supporting ancient kernels (2.4.20)
> >>They no longer support 2.4 kernels, at all:
> > Feel free to have a look at our 2.4.25 tree :-)
> Do you feel like defining "our"? linuxppc? denx?

Sorry. our = DENX here.


Best regards,

Wolfgang Denk

-- 
Software Engineering:  Embedded and Realtime Systems,  Embedded Linux
Phone: (+49)-8142-66989-10 Fax: (+49)-8142-66989-80 Email: wd at denx.de
C makes it easy for you to shoot yourself in the foot. C++ makes that
harder, but when you do, it blows away your whole leg.
                                                 -- Bjarne Stroustrup

[U-Boot-Users] Re: JFFS2 support - was: (no subject)

[C Michael Sundius]

On Apr 7, 2005, at 12:55 PM, Martin Egholm Nielsen wrote:

> Hi Michael,
>
>>> If you didn't update it yourself this just meand that it's old.  Very
>>> old. Very, very old indeed.
>
>> agreed. So I take that to be read as: go update the mtd code
>> manually, overwriting the old drivers/mtd and include/mtd directories
>> if so, what version of mtd should I use.. I understand that currently
>> the mtd guys are not supporting ancient kernels (2.4.20)
> They no longer support 2.4 kernels, at all:
>
> "As of March 2005 we dropped Linux 2.4 support from CVS head"
> (http://www.linux-mtd.infradead.org/source.html#kernelversions)
>
> however, David still backports some jffs2 stuff to the 2.4 branch:
>
> "I _am_ maintaining JFFS2 in the 2.4 kernel, even to the extent of
> backporting the __wait_on_freeing_inode() stuff from 2.6 to fix the
> problems with simultaneous read_inode() and clear_inode(). But I'm not
> adding new features, so NAND flash isn't supported in 2.4."
> (http://lists.infradead.org/pipermail/linux-mtd/2005-March/012088.html)

ah, yea, I think that means that he puts the fixes into the 2.4.27 
kernel
which is the most recent, but for 2.4.20 I think I'm up a creek... also
my understanding is that their current release of the mtd code (that you
can get seperate from the kernel) is only intended for use w/ 2.6..

thus at some point in the past there was one that worked w/ 2.4.20...I 
suppose
I should ask this on the mtd-users list. I hesitated because of all of 
their warnings
about not posting questions about 2.4 and other ancient kernels... - 
not that
I don't deserve flames from everywhere I post ;]

well thanks anyhow
>
>>> For the last time (before I give up finally): and how did you install
>>> that image to your flash partition? Under Linux or under U-Boot?  How
>>> exactly?
>> Ah, sorry I see what you are getting at.. I use U-Boot to write the 
>> jffs2 image
>> that I create on my PC host. I tftp the image, and then use cp.b to 
>> the address
>> that is my flash address space.
>> I use cp.b since it does not work doing simply cp.. because of the 
>> word length...
> I guess this is NOR flash? Otherwise you should use 
> "nand.write.jffs2", handling bad blocks (broken currently).
>
> // Martin
>
>
actually I have 2 flavors of hardware. one with NOR and one with NAND.. 
for the NAND device I
hacked the dataflash driver in u-boot to be a wrapper around our 
proprietary driver. (it works ok
but its not perfect..some stuff not supported though it seems to be 
more stable than my NOR driver).
   (maybe this is not the best way to do things.. I'm happy to be 
corrected on
this issue)

so I don't quite understand your notation "nand.write.jffs2"... is that 
part of u-boot? is that a program
or function or command?....
>
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>
>
C Michael Sundius
Brown Bear Realty
303 Cortland Ave
San Francisco, CA 94110
(415)608-0121
realtor at sundius.com

[U-Boot-Users] Re: JFFS2 support - was: (no subject)

[Wolfgang Denk]

In message <fc79e5b00895fd3c39855294dcc0c39e@sundius.com> you wrote:
> 
> which is the most recent, but for 2.4.20 I think I'm up a creek... also

As mentioned before: this is just too old a kernel [and off topic here].

> so I don't quite understand your notation "nand.write.jffs2"... is that 
> part of u-boot? is that a program
> or function or command?....

It's a command in U-Boot.

	nand write[.jffs2] addr off size - read/write `size' bytes starting
	    at offset `off' to/from memory address `addr'

Best regards,

Wolfgang Denk

-- 
Software Engineering:  Embedded and Realtime Systems,  Embedded Linux
Phone: (+49)-8142-66989-10 Fax: (+49)-8142-66989-80 Email: wd at denx.de
Sorry, but my karma just ran over your dogma.