Re: floppyinstfs size

[Jim Thompson <jim%musenki.com@localhost>]

Allen Briggs writes:
> 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.

Repeat after me: "PPCboot will do it for you."
                 "PPCboot will do it for you."
                 "PPCboot will do it for you."

> 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...  :-)

(double) woof

> > 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.

Compression?  (Isn't there some kind of 'stack the filesystem drivers'
thing in NetBSD?)

-- 
"The Tivo is a wrapper around a bad interface" -- Bruce Sterling