Dieter wrote:
> In message <[email protected]>, 
> =?ISO-8859-1?Q?=22Ing=2E_Daniel_Rozsny=F3=22?= writes:
> 
>>> Even if we can't find a device that is extremely user friendly, we should 
>>> at least
>>> use something with a socket.  Then we always have a device swap available, 
>>> both
>>> as a last resort for IP addresses and for firmware updates.
>>>
>>> So, have I missed any possible methods?  Or pros/cons?
>> Why you need a byte addressable device for that? A standard SD card 
>> suffices for both firmware (kernel+initrd) and user settings. There is 
>> no need to execute directly from NOR flash.
> 
> Well, James wrote:
> 
> } No, firmware needs to be on the other type of flash memory (NOR) that 
> } can address individual bytes like SRAM.  Flash cards (NAND) can only 
> } address blocks of data.
> 
> It certainly makes sense that firmware (at least the initial part)
> needs to be on a byte addressable device.  I am assuming that this
> applies to all the BIOS stuff including our fake video card?

This applies only to the fake video BIOS.

If the combination of other eeprom (serial) + sram + processor + cpld is
cheaper than NOR, then we can shadow the bios code into an sram, which
will be then accessed by the system's bios upon boot/post.

> For the ethervideo box, we would need enough byte addressable code
> to read from a block device.  Most of the code could be on the
> block device.

All the code can be in the block device when you have RAM (sdram..).
DSP's can boot from various sources, including serial eeprom, nand/nor
flash, etc..

D.
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