Subject: Re: direct access to Flash from userland

From: Dave Littell <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 05 Sep 2008 22:32:50 -0500

Arnd Bergmann wrote:
> On Thursday 04 September 2008, Fillod Stephane wrote:
>>> Is there a way for a userland application to issue non-CFI commands
>>> directly to a Flash device?  (This is a 2.6.18-based kernel on a AMCC
>>> PPC440EPx platform.)
>> I don't know whether there's specific ioctl for such purpose.
>> Have you tried to read the mtd source? You may also hack the mtd
>> layer to add your command. Definitely a question for 
>> http://www.linux-mtd.infradead.org/mail.html
>>
> 
> There is no ioctl command for sending arbitrary requests to the
> flash, but it sounds like something that should be implemented
> in the kernel, in mtdchar, depending on what the command does.
> 
> What are you actually trying to do with those commands?
> 

Hi Arnd,

There are some sector protection options and a user-writable
one-time-programmable section that's larger than the presently
implemented 8-byte area that I need to support.

Thanks,
Dave