Skip site navigation (1)Skip section navigation (2)
Date:      Thu, 25 May 2006 13:30:04 -0400
From:      "Andrew Atrens" <atrens@nortel.com>
To:        Poul-Henning Kamp <phk@phk.freebsd.dk>
Cc:        Alexander Leidinger <Alexander@Leidinger.net>, Jim Thompson <jim@netgate.com>, small@freebsd.org, current@freebsd.org
Subject:   Re: FreeBSD's embedded agenda
Message-ID:  <4475E99C.5000502@nortel.com>
In-Reply-To: <3723.1148575046@critter.freebsd.dk>
References:  <3723.1148575046@critter.freebsd.dk>

next in thread | previous in thread | raw e-mail | index | archive | help
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
Hash: SHA1

Seems to me you'd want a kernel that could boot off raw
flash and run in RAM off a small RAM disk.

Said kernel would have a low level driver that makes plain
old flash chips look (and behave) like a disk. It would support
wear-levelling, and (with data sheet in hand) could be statically
configured to match the flash it's targetted to run on.
Things like base address, device size, sector size, and all the
timing stuff you need to worry about with flash.

Then you could throw FFS on top of that.

I understand Jim's preference for CF in that it handles all that
stuff (including the wear-leveling) automatically, and then
there's the convenience factor of having the media 'removable'.

But you can reduce footprint and cost a lot if you could run
off plain old flash or something like an M-systems doc device.

I'm thinking there's a good chunk of the embedded market that has
that requirement.

Andrew.

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE-----
Version: GnuPG v1.4.2 (FreeBSD)
Comment: Using GnuPG with Thunderbird - http://enigmail.mozdev.org

iD8DBQFEdemc8It2CaCdeMwRAhscAKCfBBt5/zWDAmmsuCCq//r3UzqwkgCfSEEd
BS4ixNE+qGEPrrWGNM8YFVM=
=xxAt
-----END PGP SIGNATURE-----



Want to link to this message? Use this URL: <https://mail-archive.FreeBSD.org/cgi/mid.cgi?4475E99C.5000502>