Re: floppyinstfs size

[Allen Briggs <briggs%wasabisystems.com@localhost>]

On Sun, Mar 17, 2002 at 04:13:09PM -0500, Jim Thompson wrote:
> Woo.  I hate to say it like this, but I hope you're wrong.
> Linux fits (with a root filesystem) in 4MB of flash with a whole bunch
> left over.

Linux is also using the zloader to do some of that, if I recall correctly.
We are using a similar gzipped kernel loader on one of the ARM-based ports,
and I've been thinking about doing a ppc implementation.  The kernel
with an embedded root filesystem compresses at close to 50% on the ARM,
but I haven't tried on the PPC yet.

If you're just copying stuff into the root fs instead of using something
like "crunchgen", it will, of course, use much more space than Linux for
the same utilities since we don't use shared libraries for /bin, /sbin,
etc., as Linux does, and shared objects will be smaller if you have
enough of them...  :-)

> Is there anything like JFFS/JFFS2 on NetBSD (yet)?  Or do I need to
> hire Wasabi to write it?  :-)

Nothing at the moment.  I've done some hacks, which aren't in the tree
yet, to put a block translation layer on flash so that we can put a
slightly modified BSD fast filesystem (one that tells the device when
blocks no longer contain valid data) on flash.  That works pretty well,
but not as well as a real flash filesystem would.

-allen

-- 
 Allen Briggs                     briggs%wasabisystems.com@localhost
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