Re: Smartmedia/xd card support - request for comments

[Thomas Gleixner <tglx@linutronix.de>]

On Thu, 17 Apr 2008, Alex Dubov wrote:

> I've implemented, with generous help from JMicron, a native support
> for Smartmedia/xD picture card media. Currently, only JMicron
> backend is available, but TI expressed some interest in this too, so
> TI Flashmedia backend may soon follow.

> Smartmedia cards are quite akin to the dumb flash chips, but they
> have their quirks that put them aside as a separate media type.

Smartmedia cards _ARE_ dumb NAND flash chips in a thin plastic cover
with gold contacts. The access to those cards is supported in the mtd
subsystem since ages. Why are you trying to reinvent the wheel ?

The only missing piece is the FTL layer, but there was a halfways
working version in the old mtd CVS which should be still available.
 
> management of flash memory. I studied the mtd layer, but found it to
> be not very helpful, so I wrote my own FTL module.

Err, why is MTD not helpful ? It covers all the low level access to
the NAND Flash and has a flexible interface to adapt to hardware.

We really do not need a second incarnation of NAND flash software in
the kernel.

Thanks,
	tglx