RE: [gentoo-embedded] GNAP Media Formatting Error?

[Marcel Romijn]

I'm using a CF of 1 Gb, but I only format 16 Mb of it for testing.
I have not seen the timing problem you experienced (although my
gnap_overlay runs on a slow machine ;-) ).

I'll try to format the full 1Gb one of these days and report what
happens...

Marcel Romijn

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Ross Carlson [mailto:rcarlson@××××××.com]
> Sent: Friday, 19 August, 2005 15:55
> To: gentoo-embedded@l.g.o
> Subject: RE: [gentoo-embedded] GNAP Media Formatting Error?
>
> Okay! We figured this thing out...
>
> Our compact flash disk is too slow essentially.  If we
> formatted the media
> manually, that worked.  If we then mounted the disk manually,
> that worked as
> well.  But if we let gnap_overlay perform those exact same
> commands, it
> failed.  After hacking at gnap_overlay a bit we discovered
> that it seemed
> like a timing issue.  Ian (Ennis) put a couple of simple
> "sleep" statements
> in gnap_overlay before and after the formatting code chunk.
> 10 seconds was
> not enough after the format, but it was sufficient before the
> format.  He
> bumped the sleep up to 20 seconds after the format and before
> the mounting
> and it worked perfectly!  Our CompactFlash was just too slow,
> apparently.  I
> wonder if anyone else has seen this?  Seems like it could
> possibly be the
> size of the CF Disk (256MB)? Perhaps with a smaller 16 or
> 32mb disk the
> format happens fast enough to allow proper mounting?  I don't
> have a smaller
> CF Disk here so I can't test this.
>
> Here is the output of "hdparm -Tt" for the SanDisk for those
> interested in
> the speed of the media:
>
> /dev/hdc1:
>  Timing cached reads:   1032 MB in  2.01 seconds = 514.53 MB/sec
>  Timing buffered disk reads:    8 MB in  3.01 seconds =   2.66 MB/sec
>
> We can simply hack gnap_overlay ourselves for now.  But I
> wonder if others
> have experienced this, and if so, perhaps there should be a
> config option to
> the effect of "DIRT_SLOW_DISK" that toggles some sleep
> statements for those
> of us writing to disk on speed-challenged boxen.
>
> Thanks for the help, Koon and Sune!
>
> Ross Carlson
> Ian Ennis
> Corvus Technologies
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Ross Carlson [mailto:rcarlson@××××××.com]
> Sent: Friday, August 19, 2005 8:57 AM
> To: gentoo-embedded@l.g.o
> Subject: RE: [gentoo-embedded] GNAP Media Formatting Error?
>
> Koon, Thanks for the suggestion.
>
> Unfortunately, it seems not to be the formatting process (as
> seen below) but
> perhaps the mounting of the disk.  I will dig around some
> more in the source
> and see if I can find something.
>
> # mkfs.msdos /dev/hdc1
> mkfs.msdos 2.11 (12 Mar 2005)
>
> Successful format!
>
> # gnap_overlay -c overlays/project/etc/overlay.conf -d
> /dev/hdc1 -r hda1 -o
> overlays/project/ -n -m -s 9600
>
> GNAP overlay tool gnap_overlay 1.8
>  * Checking parameters...
> [ ok ]
>  * Warning : you have selected disk install
>  * Make sure you are root or have full access to /dev/hdc1
>  * /dev/hdc must have an MBR installed, run:
>  * dd if=/usr/lib/gnap/mbr/mbr.bin of=/dev/hdc bs=512 count=1
> if needed
>  * /dev/hdc1 must contain an active partition:
>  *  use fdisk /dev/hdc if needed
>  * Current data on /dev/hdc1 will be destroyed !
>  * Are your sure you want to continue [N]: Y
>  * Expanding /usr/lib/gnap/gnap-core.tar core...
> [ ok ]
>  * Preparing overlay...
> [ ok ]
>  * Adding baudrate for serial console...
> [ ok ]
>  * Adding overlays/project/ (directory overlay)...
> [ ok ]
>  * Adding overlays/project/etc/overlay.conf (overlay.conf file)...
> [ ok ]
>  * Creating overlay tarball...
> [ ok ]
>  * Formatting /dev/hdc1...
> [ !! ]
>  * Cleaning temporary directories...
> [ ok ]
> Overlay failed, try gnap_overlay -h for more help
>
> Here's the output of mount, so it doesn't appear to be related to an
> automounting issue (suggested by Sune):
>
> # mount
> /dev/hda3 on / type ext3 (rw,noatime)
> proc on /proc type proc (rw)
> sysfs on /sys type sysfs (rw)
> udev on /dev type tmpfs (rw,nosuid)
> devpts on /dev/pts type devpts (rw)
> shm on /dev/shm type tmpfs (rw,noexec,nosuid,nodev) usbfs on
> /proc/bus/usb
> type usbfs (rw)
>
>
>
> Thanks for the help.  I'll keep poking at it.
>
>
> Ross Carlson
> Corvus Technologies
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Thierry Carrez [mailto:koon@g.o]
> Sent: Friday, August 19, 2005 5:08 AM
> To: gentoo-embedded@l.g.o
> Subject: Re: [gentoo-embedded] GNAP Media Formatting Error?
>
> Ross Carlson wrote:
>
> >  * Creating overlay tarball...
> > [ ok ]
> >  * Formatting /dev/hdc1...
> > [ !! ]
> >
> > I had GNAP running on 1.7.1 (syslinux 2.13) but can't seem
> to get it
> > running now with 1.8.  The box that I'm using to build on has been
> > reloaded in the past few days.  Perhaps I am missing
> something in the
> > kernel (2.6.12-gentoo-r9)?  The target disk (SanDisk Compact Flash
> > 256MB) has been re-partitioned with a single, bootable
> partition.  The
> > gnap MBR has been copied using dd.  And then gnap_overlay as shown
> > above.  Can't seem to figure this out.  Thierry?  Anyone?
>
> Here is the code snippet that gnap_overlay runs on the "Formatting..."
> part :
>
> 	gbegin "Formatting ${OUTPUT}"
> 	mkfs.msdos "${OUTPUT}" > /dev/null 2>&1
> 	gtest $?
>
> The [ !! ] is written by gtest if an error code is set by the previous
> command. So it's the mkfs.msdos that failed. I suppressed the
> output (might
> not be a good idea) so you obviously miss the message. Try "mkfs.msdos
> /dev/hdc1" directly and see what happens.
>
> My wild guess : a required msdos/fat/vfat module is missing in your
> brand-new kernel.
>
> --
> Koon
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> gentoo-embedded@g.o mailing list
>
>
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