Bootloader

[Werner Almesberger]

Andy Green wrote:
> Yep, dynamic generation of kernel commandline has managed to exist based
> on bad blocks :-)

The command line content would not be affected by bad blocks. The
kernel also sees it always at the same place. Just the boot loader
wouldn't always see it at the same place, but that's also true for
any other block it loads.

> We need to decide about that based on the max size allocated for this
> recovery system, not the minimum and "optimize later".  What max size
> are you thinking of here for recovery kernel and rootfs / initrd?

I think we'll be fine with 2MB for kernel plus 2MB for initramfs.
When selecting memory chips or allocating partition space, I'd
double that figure as "engineering tolerance".

> No, I mean if you open the block device for dd or whatever, there is no
> "out of band" information in that device node.  You just get
> dysfunctional blocks.

You get that now as well.

> If we didn't summarize it in a bad block table mtd won't help if I
> understood it,

Hmm no, that's what MTD should do. But you have to use nandread and
nandwrite. Direct dd only works on NOR.

>    Don't we need to deal with that crap?

Not if we get rid of NAND as mass storage ;-)

- Werner