Subject: Re: Flash File system for NetBSD
To: None <tech-kern@netbsd.org>
From: Thor Lancelot Simon <tls@rek.tjls.com>
List: tech-kern
Date: 10/04/2002 13:29:44
On Fri, Oct 04, 2002 at 09:24:23AM -0700, Jason R Thorpe wrote:
> On Fri, Oct 04, 2002 at 10:42:03AM -0400, Allen Briggs wrote:
> 
>  > system to be used on top of it.  It would be ideal to have a flash
>  > file system (perhaps a port of jffs2) as well, but we have not had
> 
> Isn't jffs2 GPLd?  If so, then it is out of the question.

It also doesn't work worth a damn.  Believe me, I'm talking from experience
here.

Furthermore, it's basically a solution looking for a problem.  It is
*trivial* to arrange for your embedded device to write so infrequently
that wear-levelling isn't an issue (hint: if you're getting anything but
configuration information from a read/write filesystem, you designed your
software wrong), and besides, many increasingly common types of flash do
wear-levelling internally, for example all CompactFlash devices.

Of course, I suppose the Linux solution is to use CompactFlash and a
read-write JFFS root filesystem because, after all, it's more important
to use all the correct buzzwords than it is to actually have any clue about
what you're doing.

-- 
 Thor Lancelot Simon	                                      tls@rek.tjls.com
   But as he knew no bad language, he had called him all the names of common
 objects that he could think of, and had screamed: "You lamp!  You towel!  You
 plate!" and so on.              --Sigmund Freud