Subject: Re: MTD devices in NetBSD
To: Jason Thorpe <thorpej@shagadelic.org>
From: Garrett D'Amore <garrett_damore@tadpole.com>
List: tech-kern
Date: 03/23/2006 09:12:27
Jason Thorpe wrote:
>
> On Mar 22, 2006, at 4:17 PM, Garrett D'Amore wrote:
>
>> Ah.  See this is where we get hung up.  The idea is that historically
>> filesystems have needed to sit on top of a block device.  I'm not sure
>> this is the best abstraction for flash devices.
>
> Having a block device abstraction is nice for other reasons.  For
> example, maybe some region in flash has a raw binary executable image
> for the reset vector.  To update that, it might be nice to be able to
> simply do:
>
>     dd if=newcode.bin of=/dev/flash0 obs=64k conv=osync
>
> -- thorpej

I'm not saying we shouldn't have a block abstraction available.  Indeed,
I want to create one.  But what I am saying is that a filesystem might
do better if it can operate below that abstraction.

    -- Garrett

-- 
Garrett D'Amore, Principal Software Engineer
Tadpole Computer / Computing Technologies Division,
General Dynamics C4 Systems
http://www.tadpolecomputer.com/
Phone: 951 325-2134  Fax: 951 325-2191