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Originally Posted by PsiDOC
Noggie,
Brilliant work. I had often wondered about this myself. We all know the 7020 has a seperate bootloader so I am assuming you use the original flash as the bootloader then switch to the USB drive for the software? Or am I way wide of the mark?
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Thanks for the kind words, although I feel I don't deserve them.
If I understand your question correctly, you're spot on. I haven't touched the original bootloader, I'm just introducing one more step in the boot process (the miniroot) so that external storage can be used for the image. It's very much like using "initrd", only that flash is used instead of RAM for the initial root file system.
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Originally Posted by PsiDOC
As an afterthought my research on the DM 7000 shows it may be able to take a 64 MB bootable flash rom as an onboard replacement. Obviously soldering skills are required kids! I have yet to try it, however it's a work in progress and still at the drawing board stage.
If it works, maybe the 7020 bootloader can be added to the flash bootblock and 7020 images run on the 7000 with an upgraded flash rom?
Just a thought.
regards,
Psi
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Interesting thought. You would need to re-compile the kernel (the partitioning of the flash is hard-coded), but as long as the config file from Dream is available, that shouldn't be very difficult. From what little I've looked at this, the 7020 flash consists of three partitions:
- a small secondary bootloader (a binary exists for this)
- a boot partition (kernel and boot pictures)
- the root partition
Both the boot and the root partions are jffs2.
So your 64MB flash could have a fourth partition (the 7020 flash seems to be 32MB), jfffs2-formatted, and remain compatible with 7020 images.
Please keep us updated if do find out that upgrading internal flash is within reach of anybody with some soldering skills.
Did you look at internal RAM also, BTW? That's what's becoming the serious limiting factor for more complex software. Already, I could easily enough replace the busybox with the full-featured version of each utility, as fas as disk space is concerned, but the dreambox would start swapping like mad if I tried it. Same goes for more complex windowing software etc.