Re: APEX, NSLU2, skip stuff

[Rod Whitby <rod@whitby.id.au>]

Marc Singer wrote:
> On Mon, Aug 14, 2006 at 09:02:33AM +0930, Rod Whitby wrote:
>> Marc Singer wrote:
>>> On Mon, Aug 14, 2006 at 12:25:43AM +0200, Martin Michlmayr wrote:
>>>> * Marc Singer <elf@buici.com> [2006-08-13 12:44]:
>>>>> All good.  I flashed the image the way I flash any upgrade.  Since
>>>>> it booted, I believe it's all good.
>>>> So, I can confirm that it also works for me.  I've booted both into
>>>> debian-installer and into a Debian system, and I also tested a kernel
>>>> which is bigger than 1 MB. :-)
>>>>
>>>> I noticed that APEX loads everything from a FIS partition into memory.
>>>> Maybe it would be possible to honour the size entry from the Sercom
>>>> header, but I don't think this is terribly important.
>> APEX should honour the data size entry in the FIS directory, which
>> should be correctly written by slugimage.  The SerComm header is only
>> there for compatibility with the Linksys/SerComm hacked up RedBoot.
> 
> That's what I do, the FIS data and skip the SERCOMM headers.  I
> suggested that we abolish the SERCOMM header on the initrd, but Martin
> doesn't like that idea.  Considering that nothing can load our
> modified firmware except for APEX, there doesn't seem to be much
> reason to keep the SERCOMM header on the initrd.  It does mean that
> slugimage would need a little more work.  Does't matter to me either
> way.

It was my request that the FIS partition which starts at the Linksys
RamDisk location contains a valid SerComm header (just like the first
kernel partition).  As for subsequent partitions, I see no reason to put
a SerComm header on them.

So an APEX-managed flash image has the same number of SerComm headers in
the same locations as a standard Linksys flash image.  That's all I'm
asking for.  I'd prefer that there were no other SerComm headers added
to any other partitions.

-- Rod