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David Woodhouse | 1 Feb 2001 12:35
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Re: lrp booting from M-Systems ISA flash card


lhfrjgtn <at> peterlink.ru said:
> the main question - i need only boot from this flash card but not use
> it as hardrive (drive),  are there any ideas how to prevent system's
> hang ?

I think it's probably hanging because the built-in BIOS extension takes up 
too much memory. Can you try a newer version of SYSLINUX or using loadlin 
instead?

The kernel patches won't help you get it booting, but you may to be able to
use the flash card from within Linux - it was the first device ever
supported by the MTD code, although I had a 4MiB version. If the bitrot
hasn't got to it yet, try doc1000.c - you may need to hardcode the size of
the device and the physical location at which it's found.

You'll also want to enable FTL (not NFTL). 

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Andrey Glazunov | 2 Feb 2001 01:15
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Re: lrp booting from M-Systems ISA flash card


>
> lhfrjgtn <at> peterlink.ru said:
> > the main question - i need only boot from this flash card but not use
> > it as hardrive (drive),  are there any ideas how to prevent system's
> > hang ?
>
> I think it's probably hanging because the built-in BIOS extension takes up
> too much memory. Can you try a newer version of SYSLINUX or using loadlin
> instead?

i told about my experiment - i  boot from 1.44floppy with this ISA card
inserted to check if any conflicts with BIOS extensions and any linux code -
system boots OK ... is it good experiment ? as about memory - when this card
was 'formatted' with 8192 parameter of firmware (to support up to 32Mb
drives) syslinux says 'You have less than 604kb of memory and can have
problems ...' but it was 1.48 syslinux from original lrp package... 1.50
that reqire only >=512kb says nothing... some time later i have 'reformat'
this drive using 2048 parameter of firmware (to support up to 4Mb drives) -
it help to get 'additional' ~200kb of drivespace (from 1.6Mb up to 1.8Mb)
and decrease amount of taken off conventional memory - today even 1.48
syslinux says nothing warnings at time of booting (from floppy when card is
inserted or from card itself but hanging)

> The kernel patches won't help you get it booting, but you may to be able
to
> use the flash card from within Linux - it was the first device ever
> supported by the MTD code, although I had a 4MiB version. If the bitrot
> hasn't got to it yet, try doc1000.c - you may need to hardcode the size of
> the device and the physical location at which it's found.
(Continue reading)

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Jose Guilberto | 2 Feb 2001 01:49

Supported Flash memory


	Hello,

	Is it possible to boot Linux from any kind of flash memory with
the MTD project? If not, what are the basic requirements of the flash
memory on a SBC to allow booting from it? 

	Thank you very much for your help.

	Jose Guilberto

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David Woodhouse | 2 Feb 2001 11:30
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Re: Supported Flash memory


guilbert <at> ee.nmt.edu said:
> 
> 	Is it possible to boot Linux from any kind of flash memory with the
> MTD project? If not, what are the basic requirements of the flash
> memory on a SBC to allow booting from it?  

The MTD stuff doesn't really handle booting - it's only Linux drivers for 
once you've managed to boot the kernel. There are some patches for Grub to 
make it work from a DiskOnChip, and there is some code in the boot/ 
directory of the CVS tree for making the kernel boot from ROM/flash as a 
BIOS extension. Also see LinuxBIOS  - http://www.linuxbios.org/

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David Woodhouse | 2 Feb 2001 11:33
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Re: lrp booting from M-Systems ISA flash card


lhfrjgtn <at> peterlink.ru said:
> i told about my experiment - i  boot from 1.44floppy with this ISA
> card inserted to check if any conflicts with BIOS extensions and any
> linux code - system boots OK ... is it good experiment ? 

Er... yes, that's a good experiment. Sorry, I'd missed that. The low-memory 
explanation doesn't really hold then. Can you boot from a floppy and load 
the kernel from the flash card?

lhfrjgtn <at> peterlink.ru said:
>  what is 'bitrot' ? 

The process whereby old code which hasn't been touched for a long time just 
seems to stop working. 

> and where can i found doc1000.c ? 

In the Linux 2.4 kernel: linux/drivers/mtd/doc1000.c. Or from my CVS tree 
if you want to patch it into 2.2.

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Kevin Fenzi | 2 Feb 2001 21:58
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DOC2000 issues...


Hi folks. 

Some background:

we have a device that has a doc2000 (48MB version) on it. 
Currently we have kernel 2.2.14 with a very old m-systems driver
running on it. It boots fine from the doc2000 (thats the only bootable
device on there):

debug: entering NFDC 2148 identification routine.
Debug: identified NFDC 2148.
Debug: starting NFTL mount.
Debug: finished NFTL mount.
Trueffs: Mount status 0h
Flash disk driver for DiskOnChip2000
Copyright (C) 1998 IGEL GmbH
Copyright (C) 1998 M-Systems Flash Disk Pioneers Ltd.
Partition check:
 fla: fla1
VFS: Mounted root (ext2 filesystem) readonly.
Freeing unused kernel memory: 40k freed

It's BIOS reports:

TrueFFS-BIOS -- Version 3.3.7 for DiskOnChip 2000 (V1.23)
Copyright (C) M-Systems, 1992-2000

Ok, so I attempted to get a 2.2.18 + mtdpatch working. 
I ran into problems getting the mtd stuff to compile into the kernel.
(Continue reading)

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David Woodhouse | 2 Feb 2001 22:22
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Re: DOC2000 issues...

On Fri, 2 Feb 2001, Kevin Fenzi wrote:

> 
> ...
> M-Systems DiskOnChip driver. (C) 1999 Machine Vision Holdings, Inc.
> M-Systems NAND Flash Translation Layer driver. (C) 1999 MVHI       
> $Id: nftl.c,v 1.57 2000/12/01 17:51:54 dwmw2 Exp $          
> ...

Didn't find hardware. Did you hardcode the address or leave it at zero to 
auto-probe? Common mistake is to give the segment address not the real 
address (0xd800 not 0xd8000). You do need the extra zero.

Note to self: Hide that option and the 55AA one inside if(LINUXBIOS).

> Then, I tried the newest m-systems driver with 2.2.18:

> VFS: Cannot open root device 3e:01
> Kernel panic: VFS: Unable to mount root fs on 3e:01

They changed the major number from the temporary one they were using. But
rather than using the one I'd already registered, they started using an
entirely new one. Major 100 I think.

Geometry info is useful though - can you compare it with what the free 
driver reports, when you get that working?

> I would be happy to write up a HOWTO or the like if someone can help
> me get it going. ;)
(Continue reading)

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Kevin Fenzi | 2 Feb 2001 22:29
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Re: DOC2000 issues...

>>>>> "David" == David Woodhouse <dwmw2 <at> infradead.org> writes:

David> On Fri, 2 Feb 2001, Kevin Fenzi wrote:
>>  ...  M-Systems DiskOnChip driver. (C) 1999 Machine Vision
>> Holdings, Inc.  M-Systems NAND Flash Translation Layer driver. (C)
>> 1999 MVHI $Id: nftl.c,v 1.57 2000/12/01 17:51:54 dwmw2 Exp $ ...

David> Didn't find hardware. Did you hardcode the address or leave it
David> at zero to auto-probe? Common mistake is to give the segment
David> address not the real address (0xd800 not 0xd8000). You do need
David> the extra zero.

I left it at 0. How can I tell what address the DOC is at? from the
bios? 

So it would print something here if it found the DOC? 

David> Note to self: Hide that option and the 55AA one inside
David> if(LINUXBIOS).

yeah, also help for those kernel options would be nice. ;) 
I had to look at the code to see that 0 meant to auto-probe. ;) 

>> Then, I tried the newest m-systems driver with 2.2.18:

>> VFS: Cannot open root device 3e:01 Kernel panic: VFS: Unable to
>> mount root fs on 3e:01

David> They changed the major number from the temporary one they were
David> using. But rather than using the one I'd already registered,
(Continue reading)

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David Woodhouse | 2 Feb 2001 22:43
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Re: DOC2000 issues...

On Fri, 2 Feb 2001, Kevin Fenzi wrote:

> I left it at 0. How can I tell what address the DOC is at? from the
> bios? 
> 
> So it would print something here if it found the DOC? 

Yep, should do. Make it print stuff anyway - litter the 'doccheck' routine
in docprobe.c with printks. You do have CONFIG_MTD_DOCPROBE_HIGH turned
_off_ too, don't you? Another option which wants hiding.

--

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Kevin Fenzi | 2 Feb 2001 22:44
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Re: DOC2000 issues...

>>>>> "David" == David Woodhouse <dwmw2 <at> infradead.org> writes:

David> On Fri, 2 Feb 2001, Kevin Fenzi wrote:
>> I left it at 0. How can I tell what address the DOC is at? from the
>> bios?
>> 
>> So it would print something here if it found the DOC?

David> Yep, should do. Make it print stuff anyway - litter the
David> 'doccheck' routine in docprobe.c with printks. You do have

I can do that...

David> CONFIG_MTD_DOCPROBE_HIGH turned _off_ too, don't you? Another
David> option which wants hiding.

nope. I think I have it on. Would this be causing it to not detect it?

Let me add some printk's and turn that option off...

David> -- dwmw2

kevin

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Gmane