"James Ewing" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote

: There is a German company that has developed all the flash stuff (they did
: M-Systems Linux driver), but it is all binary only and pricey in proud
: BillGatesian style. 

http://www.igelusa.com/Flash_linux.html  could   give an idea   of the
RAM/flash size   needed (for those  thatt  don't believe 2Mb  flash is
enough)

: What Linux needs is a couple of OS gurus to write the
: FFS and flash hardware drivers under the GNU model. I a competent enough C
: hacker to contribute to this, but not guru enough to lead the pack. Any
: takers? 

        I would be pleased to  contribute. I've had  a look on how  to
mix the ramdisk block  device driver with  the exellent work done  for
the flash  bios  driver  (http://www.freiburg.linux.de/~stepan/bios/).
We could share some source code with this project.

        Some  details   on  the   flash  chips   could  be    found on
http://developer.intel.com/design/flcomp/applnots/292204.htm. 

        BIOS on embedded PC card can often acceed the flash when it is
build-in  (so that DOS  can  use it). Linux, (Free/Open/...)BSD  can't
call     yet     interrupts    in      real      mode,    but    Minix
(http://minix1.hampshire.edu/hints.html) can do it and works very fine
with 2MB flash, but maybe it is off-topic. 

        Anyway, it could  be an easyest way to  code a driver for BIOS
call (that could   be use separatly)  and a  block device driver  that
would call BIOS... Maybe it losts its interest (hAcK the flash chip as
a gUrU) but the avantage is that anyone could write and test that code
on the firt PC he finds... To be discussed.

-- 

  Vital POURPRIX
  Eleve ingenieur ESIAL
  [EMAIL PROTECTED]

Reply via email to