Re: Roadblocks to further widespread adoption of NetBSD in embedded systems (at least in my neck of the woods)

[Rafal Jaworowski <raj%semihalf.com@localhost>]

On 2010-03-26, at 21:37, Greg A. Woods wrote:

> [[Perhaps we should move part of this thread to netbsd-advocacy as it is
> not entirely about technical issues.]]
> 
> At Fri, 26 Mar 2010 13:49:17 -0500, Jack Atkinson 
> <doxalogos%gmail.com@localhost> wrote:
> Subject: Roadblocks to further widespread adoption of NetBSD in embedded 
> systems (at least in my neck of the woods)
>> 
>>  However, I cannot recommend NetBSD to them at this 
>> time, because of these areas that are lacking:
>> 
>> (listed by highest priority)
>> 1. Official PowerQuicc support in the NetBSD tree along with drivers for 
>> CPM module.  (PowerPC is not quite the same, but a good starting point)
> 
> Is your client looking at the QorIQ PowerPC e500-based platform too?
> 
> 
>> 2. No flash support for NOR flash (NAND lacking is well, but NOR is more 
>> important for this company based on current deployed hardware)
> 
> Depending on the exact devices, and the level of support required, I
> think there may be BSD-licensed drivers already available in some cases,
> i.e. in other BSDs, though it's pretty low-level basic stuff suitable
> only for stuffing new firmware images down, maybe saving configs,
> etc. but no true filesystem support or wear-levelling layers, etc.
> Eg. FreeBSD's cfi driver, and apparently there are some old and new NAND
> driver projects for FreeBSD as well (one by the late John Birrell).
> John claimed "writing NAND drivers for FreeBSD using GEOM is a trivial
> matter.  It only taking a few days or a week at most."

FWIW: FreeBSD has recently grown an extensible NAND framework, which is in 
quite decent and usable state at the moment already (includes a full ONFI 
device system simulator):

http://p4db.freebsd.org/changeList.cgi?FSPC=//depot/projects/nand2/...
http://wiki.freebsd.org/NAND#head-9a32aaa85046b2f9f9219e36ba34947ca47a4153

Among the already supported are NAND controllers found in Marvell and Freescale 
devices.

Rafal