In message 000d01c32a8d$a615aea0$90f59f0a@pc0709 you wrote:
I'm working with Nicholas on the dataflash driver for U-Boot. The dataflash is used to store big amount of data(up to 128 Mbits for the AT45DB128).
OK, so my understanding was correct.
In our case, we use it to store and boot an image of linux(the dataflash contains the linux zImage and the ramdisk). This dataflash can be used also for a filesystem.
In this case I think we should offer an interface which looks to the user like mmeory.
Instead of providing separate commands to read and write from such "memory" I think we should integrate this into the existing code.
For example, writing to "normal" flash memory is an implicit operation to the "cp" (copy) command when it detects that the target address is in flash memory.
The same should be done for dataflash.
OK, with "normal" flash memory we don't have to special-case read accesses like used by "md" or "bootm" commands - where in case of dataflash such handling will be necessary.
But especially if you boot Linux from dataflash it seems more logical to me to use "bootm" directly instead of using "dataflash read" + "bootm" in separate steps.
Do you t hink tis is feasible?
Best regards,
Wolfgang Denk