Stable storage of BIOS parameters...

[Eric W. Biederman]

ron minnich <rminnich at lanl.gov> writes:

> On 17 Apr 2003, Eric W. Biederman wrote:
> 
> > But regardless the basic question is does putting a jffs2 filesystem on
> > the flash start to sound like a good idea?  And doing things like
> > hard coding filenames or something into the LinuxBIOS code that looks
> > up information.
> 
> seems ok at first glance.
> 
> > I'm just playing with ideas at this point.  And the real question is
> > how to put the information on the flash.  Not what should be the content
> > of the individual files.  So S-expr is hopefully irrelevant to this bit
> > of conversation.  I have yet to be convinced a self describing format
> > does not have unfortunate size overheads.
> 
> Yes, but: isn't a file system in some sense an attempt to get a 
> self-describing format?

O.k. Lets try describing this another way:
- A filesystem is needed so the data is
  1) To handle the strangeness of flash chips.
  2) Self describing at least on a course level.

For the CMOS I keep the data described in the LinuxBIOS table,
with the actual data being stored out of line.

In some instances a binary only representation is better
because the value can be directly used.

So if we are already self describing at the fs level do we need S-exprs?

In any event it is important that someplace you define what all of the kinds
of data are and what they mean.

And beyond that I think size and simplicity are important.  Not so
important that we paint ourselves into a corner. But important enough
that we keep a close eye on what we are doing.

Eric