[PATCH 13/22] remove erase regions

[Jörn Engel]

On Tue, 21 December 2004 10:42:07 -0800, Christopher Hoover wrote:
> >From Jörn Engel -
> > I see absolutely no reason for complicated erase reagions.  On the
> > user side, everyone but mtdchar effectively ignores it anyway.
> 
> I don't grok this.   What about flash with variable-sized blocks?  (I have a
> board with such flash and code that uses eraseregions.)

Sure, from AMD or some other compatible manufacturer.  The
variable-sized blocks were nice until there were better solutions to
the problem, like jffs2.  Jffs2 exists, so they are largely useless.

Last time I looked, there were five users of mtd devices:
1. jffs
2. jffs2
3. yaffs
4. mtdblock
5. mtdchar

1 and 2 don't use the smaller blocks.  3 doesn't work with NOR-flash
anyway.  4 doesn't use the smaller blocks.  5 does, but is horribly
ugly and noone cares enough to clean it up.  You do the math.

1, 2 and 4 effectively use the smaller blocks as if they were a single
larger block.  So the space is not wasted, but that's about it.

Jörn

-- 
With a PC, I always felt limited by the software available. On Unix, 
I am limited only by my knowledge.
-- Peter J. Schoenster