From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Return-Path: Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org via listexpand id S1755403AbYDRIr0 (ORCPT ); Fri, 18 Apr 2008 04:47:26 -0400 Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org id S1752524AbYDRIrR (ORCPT ); Fri, 18 Apr 2008 04:47:17 -0400 Received: from web36707.mail.mud.yahoo.com ([209.191.85.41]:45926 "HELO web36707.mail.mud.yahoo.com" rhost-flags-OK-OK-OK-OK) by vger.kernel.org with SMTP id S1752508AbYDRIrQ (ORCPT ); Fri, 18 Apr 2008 04:47:16 -0400 DomainKey-Signature: a=rsa-sha1; q=dns; c=nofws; s=s1024; d=yahoo.com; h=X-YMail-OSG:Received:Date:From:Subject:To:Cc:In-Reply-To:MIME-Version:Content-Type:Content-Transfer-Encoding:Message-ID; b=L++fzLa9028g0W6cQsU6Cg33C1EXjaEvfamlAuiYlb6sNeHYk3U8Lh3/sho9YcKfjJMuGDQVxzD8J4YqShyBbXbUbj0XjrCir2imZhq//JguEd6ZIbIt/8NF6wXbN75H/6doxmt5rwbX3UQl8VicYv+E9W78Jq8ChWbr8/YX4UU=; X-YMail-OSG: ZcY5G5MVM1l1.PcjSX2M5i_82kWbQFsGwMC8lp7rSA3g6Y1yqyc1_VHOYv2y.rGNljlq6rTQMUSAJfW7J8eke8EE0nCRpII0b1BhRH7W63Ai8bf1cCq5XL8QIw-- Date: Fri, 18 Apr 2008 01:47:12 -0700 (PDT) From: Alex Dubov Subject: Re: Smartmedia/xd card support - request for comments To: linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org Cc: joern@logfs.org, tglx@linutronix.de, ben@fluff.org In-Reply-To: <20080417212138.GA343@logfs.org> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7BIT Message-ID: <143829.94600.qm@web36707.mail.mud.yahoo.com> Sender: linux-kernel-owner@vger.kernel.org List-ID: X-Mailing-List: linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org Unfortunately, I must say, Smartmedia is not supported on linux for any reasonable definition of the word. First, with all the respect to Jorn, alauda driver can only be considered "proof of concept". It does not try to abstract any smartmedia functionality. Second, ssfdc is hopelessly obsolete and requires rewrite. Third, there's no attempt made by mtd to support advanced functionality present in many smartmedia and all memorystick readers: adapter side copy and multi page programming (this mostly relates to memorystick, of course). I also failed to see any support for device writing policy, needed to discern, for example, sequential page programmable devices vs. block programmable devices. I also failed to see an unified approach to page-accessible devices, meaning duplication of "bouncing" code in the backends. In general, block device emulation layer of mtd is incomplete at best. No infrastructure exists for exporting and manipulation of metadata in userspace. And, in general, architecture of mtd is suboptimal, relying on blocking calls (as opposed to callback based architecture). Considering all this, amount of effort needed for satisfactory support of smartmedia through mtd was found by me to be far greater than coming with stand-alone implementation. I do agree, that eventually my work can be merged into mtd. I don't see what prevents merging of my implementation as is on an interim basis, considering there are no real alternatives. In case somebody is actually interested in looking at the code: http://svn.berlios.de/wsvn/tifmxx/trunk/driver/#_trunk_driver_ ____________________________________________________________________________________ Be a better friend, newshound, and know-it-all with Yahoo! Mobile. Try it now. http://mobile.yahoo.com/;_ylt=Ahu06i62sR8HDtDypao8Wcj9tAcJ