f2fs on GTA02

Phil Vandry vandry at TZoNE.ORG
Thu Dec 6 22:19:37 CET 2012


Hello Freerunner users,

I am interested in using the new f2fs filesystem created by Kim Jaegeuk 
at Samsung on the µSD cards of a bunch of GTA02s. Right now it's 
undergoing testing in linux-next and there are several fresh discussion 
threads about it on lkml. I intend to wait until the code has stabilized 
a bit before making the attempt.

First, is this a good idea? Also, is anyone else interested?

The problem is that the code only compiles against recent Linux kernels 
and the newest kernel available for GTA02 is 2.6.39. I see two options:

1. Get Linux 3.7 working on the GTA02

2. Get f2fs working on Linux 2.6.39

Both options are challenging but I have to go for #2 because I don't 
have the knowledge to do #1.

For #1: There are quite a few differences between upstream 2.6.39 and 
om-gta02-2.6.39 kernels. Some of the patches I understand and could 
re-apply against a more recent kernel, some of them have already been 
integrated upstream, but others are mysterious to me and even if I could 
apply them I can't guess whether or not they ought to still be applied. 
One big issue is that the glamo driver is not present upstream (and 
ar6000 also?).

For #2: I have already prepared a patch to backport f2fs to 
2.6.34/2.6.39 but there have been quite a lot of changes in the vfs and 
other areas in the intervening time. The patch is 817 lines long. Most 
of it is straightforward, though there were one or two tricky bits. The 
only thing I have achieved so far is getting it to compile with no 
errors and no warnings. That's a start, but it's not a guarantee that 
the filesystem will actually work!

A significant problem with #2 is maintenance and bug fixes going 
forward. I would have to backport all future changes to f2fs.

Anyway, for the information of anyone who's interested, I plan to at 
least give option #2 a try and see if I might be lucky :-)

-v



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