Thanks a lot!
On Thu, Jan 6, 2011 at 1:22 PM, Rob Landley <[email protected]> wrote: > On Thursday 06 January 2011 04:07:39 Peter Korsgaard wrote: >> >>>>> "Rob" == Rob Landley <[email protected]> writes: >> >> Rob> The solution embedded people use is either: >> >> Rob> 1) Use a jtag to reflash the device, so no matter how bricked it >> Rob> gets it can be externally driven by shouting "clear", applying >> Rob> paddles, and hooking it up to an IV drip. >> >> Rob> 2) Have a small bootloader in its own flash erase block (or actual >> Rob> ROM) that never gets overwritten and is capable of loading and >> Rob> booting something from network or serial or some such, so you >> Rob> always have a fallback recovery option. >> >> Rob> 3) Design the hardware to boot from an SD card, so you can unbrick >> your Rob> embedded device the same way you unbrick a PC, by inserting a >> boot disk. >> >> 4) Use a bootloader and a store everything else double. Use a ping/pong >> system so you never overwrite what you are currently using. Fall back to >> the previous system in the bootloader if the new system fails. > > Heh, I did that on my first embedded system for weboffice back in 2001. (The > "lilo -R" option was something grub _still_ can't do. Yeah an interactive > shell is great, but not so much on a headless box being updated remotely.) > > The cheaper embedded devices don't have resources to waste on duplicate copies > of stuff, but moore's law marches on. (Then again I'm still waiting for > cereal > boxes that update a "writeable paper" style display on the front every 30 > seconds using a 386-equivalent proccessor driven by a watch battery. > Disposable computing is only a matter of time...) > > Rob > -- > GPLv3: as worthy a successor as The Phantom Menace, as timely as Duke Nukem > Forever, and as welcome as New Coke. > _______________________________________________ > busybox mailing list > [email protected] > http://lists.busybox.net/mailman/listinfo/busybox > _______________________________________________ busybox mailing list [email protected] http://lists.busybox.net/mailman/listinfo/busybox
