Re: [ECOS] Additional serial drivers & file systems & redboot for i386 targets

[Jonathan Larmour <jlarmour at redhat dot com>]

Teng Chee Wan Philip wrote:
> 
> Hi,
> 
> I have a few questions about the i386 PC:
> 
> 1.  The i386 PC target has 2 serial ports.  I would like to add a serial I/O
> card to it to get more serial I/O ports and write a serial I/O driver for it.
> What would be the neatest way to do it?  The serial I/O card needs some
> additional initialisation to 'activate' it.  Do I modify
> packages/io/serial/v1_3_1/i386/pc_serial.c and the corresponding .cdl file
> directly?  I hope to use the configuration tool to enable or disable the driver
> depending on whether the serial card is installed or not.

Sounds about right.
 
> 2.  I read some exchanges about having a DOS Filesystem on ECOS.  Personally, I
> felt this will be useful, esp for my application where I need to store large
> amount of data on harddisks.  Is this coming in the foreseeable future?
> Meanwhile, is there any way I can make use of the harddisk to store my data
> under ECOS?  Using raw filesystems(if any)or other formats?

As far as I know, there's no effort currently to provide a DOS filesystem
_publically_ for eCos. I know some people out there have written their own.

> 3.  Is redboot supported on i386 target?  I can't find any.  Is there any reason
> why redboot is not supported?  Or are we just waiting for someone to develop it?

It has been developed. It's a long story, but if you search the mail
archives at http://sources.redhat.com/ml/ecos-discuss you'll find patches
from Fabrice Gautier. Note that they may not apply well to the current CVS
so you may have to check out CVS from an earlier date.

Jifl
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