MTD: include ar7part in the list of partitions parsers

This patch modifies the physmap-flash driver to include the ar7part partition parser in the list of parsers to use when a physmap-flash driver is registered. This is required for AR7 to create partitions correctly.

Quoted 4 lines · Florian Fainelli

This patch modifies the physmap-flash driver to include the ar7part partition parser in the list of parsers to use when a physmap-flash driver is registered. This is required for AR7 to create partitions correctly.

Hrm, perhaps we'd do better to allow the probe types to be specified in the platform physmap_flash_data?

Quoted 8 lines · In gmane.linux.drivers.mtd David Woodhouse

Quoted 4 lines · Florian Fainelli

This patch modifies the physmap-flash driver to include the ar7part partition parser in the list of parsers to use when a physmap-flash driver is registered. This is required for AR7 to create partitions correctly.

Hrm, perhaps we'd do better to allow the probe types to be specified in the platform physmap_flash_data?

I am not completely convinced the ar7part approach is the best way as you are:
1) not actually reading a partition table and instead using a bunch of 'magic' values to try to work out the partition layout
2) it bears no resemble to what is seen by the ADAM2 bootloader
3) regardless of whether you would actually want to, the user is unable to amend the partition table and have Linux automagically set the table apprioately

I chatted with Florian a while back about this but we never continued with it (Real Life[tm] seemed to get in the way) but I had cobbled the following together:
----

arch/mips/ar7/platform.c +56 -1

index e2278c0..df33fea 100644
@@ -24,6 +24,7 @@
 #include <linux/dma-mapping.h>
 #include <linux/platform_device.h>
 #include <linux/mtd/physmap.h>
+#include <linux/mtd/partitions.h>
 #include <linux/serial.h>
 #include <linux/serial_8250.h>
 #include <linux/ioport.h>

@@ -467,6 +468,60 @@ static void cpmac_get_mac(int instance, unsigned char
 *dev_addr) char2hex(mac[i * 3 + 1]);
 }
 
+static void __init detect_partitions(void)
+{
+	unsigned int i, start, end;
+	int ret;
+	char mtdenv[5], *buf;
+
+	for (physmap_flash_data.nr_parts = 0;
+			physmap_flash_data.nr_parts < 10;
+			physmap_flash_data.nr_parts++) {
+		sprintf(mtdenv, "mtd%d", physmap_flash_data.nr_parts);
+		if (!prom_getenv(mtdenv))
+			break;
+	}
+
+	if (physmap_flash_data.nr_parts == 0) {
+		printk(KERN_INFO "No partitions found for physmap MTD\n");
+		return;
+	}
+	if (physmap_flash_data.nr_parts == 10)
+		printk(KERN_INFO "Reached nr_parts limit for physmap MTD\n");
+
+	physmap_flash_data.parts = kzalloc(
+			sizeof(struct mtd_partition)*physmap_flash_data.nr_parts,
+			GFP_KERNEL);
+	if (!physmap_flash_data.parts) {
+		printk(KERN_ERR "Unable to alloc physmap MTD parts struct\n");
+		return;
+	}
+
+	for (i = 0; i < physmap_flash_data.nr_parts; i++) {
+		sprintf(mtdenv, "mtd%d", i);
+		buf = prom_getenv(mtdenv);
+
+		ret = sscanf(buf, "%x,%x", &start, &end);
+		if (ret != 2 || start < 0x90000000 || start > 0x90400000
+				|| end < 0x90000000 || end > 0x90400000
+				|| start > end) {
+			printk(KERN_WARNING "broken partition table for physmap\n");
+			kfree(physmap_flash_data.parts);
+			physmap_flash_data.parts = NULL;
+			physmap_flash_data.nr_parts = 0;
+			return;
+		}
+
+		start -= 0x90000000;
+		end -= 0x90000000;
+
+		physmap_flash_data.parts[i].name	= NULL;
+		physmap_flash_data.parts[i].size	= end - start;
+		physmap_flash_data.parts[i].offset	= start;
+		physmap_flash_data.parts[i].mask_flags	= MTD_WRITEABLE;
+	}
+}
+
 static void __init detect_leds(void)
 {
 	char *prid, *usb_prod;

@@ -536,6 +591,7 @@ static int __init ar7_register_devices(void)
 			return res;
 	}
 #endif /* CONFIG_SERIAL_8250 */
+	detect_partitions();
 	res = platform_device_register(&physmap_flash);
 	if (res)
 		return res;
----

It simply pulls apart the 'PROM' (aka ADAM2) config and uses that to build the partition table.

Quoted 5 lines

[snipped]

It simply pulls apart the 'PROM' (aka ADAM2) config and uses that to build the partition table.

This is indeed simple but if I recall right the rationale behind ar7part was to create a sane partition layout no matter if the bootloader was ADAM2 or PSPBoot and the root filesystem type. JFFS2 and squashfs do not have the same erase-block size alignment constraints, ar7part deals with that too.

Quoted 4 lines · Florian Fainelli

This patch modifies the physmap-flash driver to include the ar7part partition parser in the list of parsers to use when a physmap-flash driver is registered. This is required for AR7 to create partitions correctly.

Hrm, perhaps we'd do better to allow the probe types to be specified in the platform physmap_flash_data?

This patch modifies the physmap-flash driver to include the ar7part partition parser in the list of parsers to use when a physmap-flash driver is registered. This is required for AR7 to create partitions correctly.

Signed-off-by Florian Fainelli <[email protected]>

Quoted 6 lines · Florian Fainelli

This patch modifies the physmap-flash driver to include the ar7part partition parser in the list of parsers to use when a physmap-flash driver is registered. This is required for AR7 to create partitions correctly.

Signed-off-by Florian Fainelli <[email protected]>

Taken this to my l2-mtd-2.6/dunno tree.