From owner-freebsd-current@FreeBSD.ORG Thu May 25 17:30:40 2006 Return-Path: X-Original-To: current@freebsd.org Delivered-To: freebsd-current@FreeBSD.ORG Received: from mx1.FreeBSD.org (mx1.freebsd.org [216.136.204.125]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id EB3BB16A527; Thu, 25 May 2006 17:30:40 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from ATRENS@nortel.com) Received: from zcars04f.nortel.com (zcars04f.nortel.com [47.129.242.57]) by mx1.FreeBSD.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id A5E4743D5E; Thu, 25 May 2006 17:30:37 +0000 (GMT) (envelope-from ATRENS@nortel.com) Received: from zcarhxm2.corp.nortel.com (zcarhxm2.corp.nortel.com [47.129.230.99]) by zcars04f.nortel.com (Switch-2.2.6/Switch-2.2.0) with ESMTP id k4PHUGS12498; Thu, 25 May 2006 13:30:16 -0400 (EDT) Received: from [10.0.10.2] ([47.128.166.148] RDNS failed) by zcarhxm2.corp.nortel.com with Microsoft SMTPSVC(6.0.3790.1830); Thu, 25 May 2006 13:30:12 -0400 Message-ID: <4475E99C.5000502@nortel.com> Date: Thu, 25 May 2006 13:30:04 -0400 From: "Andrew Atrens" User-Agent: Mozilla Thunderbird 1.0.7 (X11/20051129) X-Accept-Language: en-us, en MIME-Version: 1.0 To: Poul-Henning Kamp References: <3723.1148575046@critter.freebsd.dk> In-Reply-To: <3723.1148575046@critter.freebsd.dk> X-Enigmail-Version: 0.93.0.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-OriginalArrivalTime: 25 May 2006 17:30:12.0757 (UTC) FILETIME=[E0ECEC50:01C68020] X-Mailman-Approved-At: Thu, 25 May 2006 17:54:48 +0000 Cc: Alexander Leidinger , Jim Thompson , small@freebsd.org, current@freebsd.org Subject: Re: FreeBSD's embedded agenda X-BeenThere: freebsd-current@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.5 Precedence: list List-Id: Discussions about the use of FreeBSD-current List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Thu, 25 May 2006 17:30:45 -0000 -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 Seems to me you'd want a kernel that could boot off raw flash and run in RAM off a small RAM disk. Said kernel would have a low level driver that makes plain old flash chips look (and behave) like a disk. It would support wear-levelling, and (with data sheet in hand) could be statically configured to match the flash it's targetted to run on. Things like base address, device size, sector size, and all the timing stuff you need to worry about with flash. Then you could throw FFS on top of that. I understand Jim's preference for CF in that it handles all that stuff (including the wear-leveling) automatically, and then there's the convenience factor of having the media 'removable'. But you can reduce footprint and cost a lot if you could run off plain old flash or something like an M-systems doc device. I'm thinking there's a good chunk of the embedded market that has that requirement. Andrew. -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v1.4.2 (FreeBSD) Comment: Using GnuPG with Thunderbird - http://enigmail.mozdev.org iD8DBQFEdemc8It2CaCdeMwRAhscAKCfBBt5/zWDAmmsuCCq//r3UzqwkgCfSEEd BS4ixNE+qGEPrrWGNM8YFVM= =xxAt -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----