Talk:Flash driver/Original
The WRT54GL has a 4MB Intel Flash chip which is able to store CFE, NVRAM settings, an operating system (like OpenWRT or LinkSys' operating system (or even XINU), and optionally a file system. Currently the bleeding edge version of XINU in the flashmem branch has a working Flash driver, though it is not the one on this page and will be replaced with the driver described in this document. GL-series routers have 2 erase-block regions (8-8KB and 63-64KB).
Flash memory remains minimally tested on the WRT54G. XINU reports that the G-series has 2MB of Flash memory, separated into 4 regioins of varying erase-block sizes (1-16KB, 2-8KB, 1-32KB, and 31-64KB).
Contents
Terminology
Flash is bounded by the rule that to program the software may only change a 1-bit to a 0-bit and cannot change from a 0 to a 1. Because of this, it is often necesary to erase a block of memory (setting all bits in the block to 1) and then write data to it. This is known as an "erasae-block". The majority of these seem to be in the 64 kilobyte range, with the smallest being a massive 8 kilobyte erase-block. This causes a problem as most file systems work in 512 byte blocks or 2048 byte blocks, both of which are substantially smaller than the smallest erase-block. The Flash driver#Logical Flash Interface attempts to solve this problem by presenting standard 512 byte blocks to the higher layers while maintaining erase-block regions within physical flash memory.
Physical Flash
The base location of physical Flash is stored in a flash structure and for both series of routers is 0xBC000000.
As stated above physical Flash is seperated into erase-blocks which are the smallest writable unit on Flash memory. The GL-series and the G-series have differing Flash sizes and erase-block layouts. The 4MB GLs have 2 erase-block regions with the first having 8-8 kilobyte erase-blocks and the second having 63-64 kilobyte erase-blocks. The 2MB Gs have 4 erase-block regions, the first having 1-16 kilobyte erase-block, followed by 2-8 kilobyte erase-blocks, then 1-32 kilobyte erase-block, and finally 31-64 kilobyte erase-blocks.
Because of these inconsistencies, this driver will use the Logical Flash Interface to provide a standard view of Flash memory with a fixed block size throughout.
