[maemo-developers] [maemo-developers] Re: [maemo-announce] New Nokia 770 software image available

[From: Igor Stoppa]

On Fri, 2006-11-03 at 11:09 -0500, ext Michael Wiktowy wrote:
> On 11/3/06, Frantisek Dufka <dufkaf at seznam.cz> wrote:
> > Daniel Stone wrote:
> > >
> > > you can't do the
> > > bootloader, kernel, and initfs from userspace.
> > >
> >
> > Well, you can, but it really isn't a good idea. It has no chance to be
> > completely safe, something may go wrong pretty easily (like random
> > device reboot). There is no safe order in which you can make the upgrade
> > of those specific parts (bootloader,kernel,initfs,rootfs) and still have
> > device bootable if the process is interrupted.
> 
> That is also something that could be said for the flashing through the
> USB method too. If that is interrupted then you are likely equally
> unable to boot your 770. 
No: only the bootloader is the critical part, since it takes care of
flashing anything else.
As long as the bootloader replacement succedes, you can always refrash
the rest.

If not, well, you have just become the happy owner of a brick.
Service point can help.

> However, you can always try again ... just
> like you could always fall back to the USB method if the updating
> internally fails.
> 
> What might really complicate this a great deal is if the N770 kernel
> uses those "run in place" features I recall reading about that was
> introduced for embedded systems that causes the kernel to just run
> apps directly from flash memory rather than copying them to RAM and
> then running from there. Writing directly to a program space that you
> are currently running is the road to nastiness.

No, 770 doesn't and anyway NAND flash is not very xip friendly :)

-- 
Cheers
 
Igor Stoppa <igor.stoppa at nokia.com>
(Nokia M - OSSO / Tampere Finland)