Re: [ECOS] Re: building redboot with eCos kernel

[Nick Garnett <nickg@ecoscentric.com>]

Savin Zlobec <savin@elatec.si> writes:

> Nick Garnett wrote:
> 
> >Michael Jastrebtsoff <jam2000@pisem.net> writes:
> >
> >> Hello, All.
> >> I need to build Redboot with FAT support. But FAT requires eCos
> >> kernel.
> >> I try build Redboot with eCos kernel, but this don't work.(when i
> >> connected to redboot via terminal, i'v  got a random chars on screen.)
> >
> >The FAT filesystem will not work in RedBoot since it requires too many
> >kernel facilities to work. You cannot put the kernel into RedBoot
> >since RedBoot is intended to be a stand alone application, there are
> >just too many assumptions for this to work.
> >
> There shouldn't be a lot do to get fatfs into RedBoot - all I can think of
> right now is the cyg_mempool_* api which is not available in nonkernel
> configurations.
> 
> >The only use that RedBoot would have for FAT filesystem support is to
> >load executables. So a simple read-only loader similar to the one that
> >already exists for ext2 would be a better solution.
> >
> This has already beed done - check The DODES project at
> http://www.m17n.org/dodes/ecos/index.en.html.

Give or take a bit of fixing to bring it up to date -- it is 2.5 years
old -- that is what I meant. It's a pity it has never been contributed
back to the public repository.

However, the main point is that putting the whole FAT fs into RedBoot
is overkill when RedBoot can only use it for read-only access. We need
to do our best to keep RedBoot small.

-- 
Nick Garnett                    eCos Kernel Architect
http://www.ecoscentric.com      The eCos and RedBoot experts


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