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From: hosokawa@mt.cs.keio.ac.jp (HOSOKAWA Tatsumi)
Newsgroups: comp.unix.bsd.freebsd.misc
Subject: Re: FreeBSD and flash disk
Date: 9 Feb 1996 08:30:07 GMT
Organization: Tokoro Laboratory, Keio University, Yokohama Japan.
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Message-ID: <4ff0mf$9in@kogwy.cc.keio.ac.jp>
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In article <DMCCtA.9B5@un.seqeb.gov.au>
pc012@un.seqeb.gov.au writes:
>> Has anyone had any experience running FreeBSD-2.1.0 out of a flash ram type
>> disk drive. These flash ram devices are found on some embedded processor
>> boards and are supported by BIOS. What I want to do is build a MFS in kernel
>> type filesystem and run it off an embedded PC as an industrial type
>> controller. No moving parts and so it should be fairly reliable. Anyone have
>> any clues.
Flash memory card has two types. One is Flash ATA, and the other is
"pure" flash memory card. Flash ATA card emulates ATA HDD with its
hardware. "pccard-test" package for FreeBSD 2.1.0 (see
http://www.mt.cs.keio.ac.jp/person/hosokawa/freebsd-pcmcia/) can drive
the Flash ATA PCMCIA cards (SunDisk and Epson) on your FreeBSD 2.1.0.
I can use SunDisk Flash ATA card with my laptop running FreeBSD. If I
plluged the card on my laptop and type
# mount -t msdos /dev/wd1s1 /flash
I can use /flash as DOS filesystem. If you want to use these PCMCIA
cards on you desktop (or embedded machie as you wrote), I think you
can use it but I have not tested it. Write the boot record from DOS
on your PCMCIA Flash ATA and create a partition for FreeBSD. Plug
this card on a laptop running FreeBSD w/pccard-test package, and
disklabel and newfs the FreeBSD partition of Flash ATA. And, copy the
kerenel "w/o" pccard-test package on the Flash ATA ("pccard-test"
package resets the PCIC chipset, so you can't use this package on the
target machine). Shutdown the machine and insert the card on your
target machine and specify the Flash ATA as the boot device (if your
BIOS supports this tricky setting). Possibly you can boot FreeBSD
only on Flash ATA without FDD and HDD, ... but I haven't test it. I
can't gurantee that this trick can be applied on "real" machines. But
I think booting FreeBSD from Flash ATA is possible if your BIOS can
specify the Flash ATA card as the boot device.
--
HOSOKAWA, Tatsumi E-mail: hosokawa@mt.cs.keio.ac.jp
WWW homepage: http://www.mt.cs.keio.ac.jp/person/hosokawa.html
Department of Computer Science, Keio University, Yokohama, Japan