Support for MTD devices (NAND/NOR Flash)

[Wolfgang Tolkien]

Would there be any issues regarding the kernel? On MTD devices, the 
kernel typically resides in a separate partition with no underlying file 
system at all. The same applies to the bootloader partition, which also 
has no file system. Would this cause any major complications with the 
existing snappy architecture?

To be more specific, I currently have an AP148 development in front of 
me, which has a Qualcomm IPQ8064 CPU (2x 1.4 GHz ARM) with 32MB NOR 
flash and 256MB NAND flash (which could eventually be increased). The 
CPU boots off the NOR flash, which contains a number of Qualcomm 
specific bootloaders and eventually passes control over to u-boot. 
U-boot then loads the kernel. Each of these components (various 
bootloaders and kernel) reside in their own partition on NOR flash. The 
kernel eventually loads a UBI root file system from NAND flash.

So there might be a little bit more to it then just replacing ext4 with 
ubifs. And before we start any work on this, I'd like to find out if 
this architecture would pose any fundamental problems.

Wolfgang


On 16-02-29 03:57 AM, Mark Shuttleworth wrote:
> In principle, any read-write filesystem is fine for the bulk partition
> of snaps and user data. We understand the value of wear-levelling
> filesystems and would be glad to see those integrated. There may be some
> constraints imposed by firmware, but if your device supports it we can
> get there.
>
> There may be work to be done (over time we expect to flesh out support
> for more complex cases, such as NVRAM storage of critical items) but it
> all seems achievable on the 16.04 branch (which will continue to evolve
> even though the actual OS is stable).
>
> Mark
>
> On 29/02/16 06:03, Wolfgang Tolkien wrote:
>> I'm new to Snappy, and so far it seems very impressive! I have a few
>> questions though: we are looking at Snappy as a possible platform for
>> future products and I noticed that all the hardware platforms that are
>> supported so far seem to have SD/MMC/eMMC storage (or of course
>> regular HDDs/SSDs for larger systems)
>>
>> Is it possible to run Snappy on hardware that uses MTD devices in
>> combination with filesystems such as UBI or JFFS2?
>>
>> And if the answer is no, are there any plans to support this in the
>> future?
>>
>> Many thanks,
>> Wolfgang
>>
>>

-- 

Wolfgang Tolkien
Senior Firmware Developer

*Cypress Solutions Inc.*
3066 Beta Ave Burnaby, B.C.
V5G 4K4 604-294-4465
www.cypress.bc.ca <http://www.cypress.bc.ca/>
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