Date: Thu, 14 May 1998 11:45:33 +0200 (CEST) From: Andrzej Bialecki <abial@nask.pl> To: sbabkin@dcn.att.com Cc: hackers@FreeBSD.ORG, al@cn.ua Subject: RE: Q. Work on boot code for Intel Flash 2 PCMCIA card? Message-ID: <Pine.NEB.3.95.980514113645.17370A-100000@korin.warman.org.pl> In-Reply-To: <C50B6FBA632FD111AF0F0000C0AD71EEACDF38@dcn71.dcn.att.com>
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On Wed, 13 May 1998 sbabkin@dcn.att.com wrote:
> > I'm going to make FreeBSD booting from PCMCIA Flash card. Goal is
> > FreeBSD-based diskless router with
> > serial console and a lot of various network interfaces.
Heh! :-) This is the subject of the week... Just few hours ago I received
mail from two (independently working) guys who try to do the same, and one
of them even succeeded! :-))
(I'll put more info on www.freebsd.org/~abial).
I already asked Jonathan Bresler for creating mailing list for this type
of discussion. It'll be called freebsd-small, and will cover the issues of
small, unusual FreeBSD installations (such as picobsd and embedded
applications). You're welcome to join it as soon as it springs into
existence....
> > I guess it's much easier to get PCMCIA interface+ flash card and make
> > router more powerfull that CISCO or BAY :-)
Hmm... This would need some serious work (configuration management,
improved routing code, special memory management constraints etc..) but
I'd say it's tempting enough... :-) I even collected some interesting
pointers, just in case...
> I think the best solution would be to make an ISA card (yes, ISA,
> not PCI because there are many other good things to insert into
> PCI slots while ISA slots are commonly unused) that makes interface
> to a flash card through a 8K (or some other small) window, exposing
> the first 8K of flash memory at boot up. It must be mapped into ISA
> hole. This will allow to put the bootstrap code into this area of the
> flash memory, that will be automatically called by any BIOS during
> boot-up. This bootstrap can then do anything from immediate boot
> to simulating a floppy drive. May be a good idea would be to have
> two independently mapped 8K or 4K sized windows for convenience of
> the bootstrap code.
Have you done any testing with something similar, or written some code...?
Andrzej Bialecki
--------------------+---------------------------------------------------------
abial@nask.pl | if(halt_per_mth > 0) { fetch("http://www.freebsd.org") }
Research & Academic | "Be open-minded, but don't let your brains to fall out."
Network in Poland | All of the above (and more) is just my personal opinion.
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