On Wed, Jul 02, 2008 at 06:43:19PM +0200, Stefan Reinauer wrote:
If I tell flashrom to only write to a six-byte area in the chip - I sure do not want the eraseblock to be erased.
If necessary for those 6 byte to write, yes, that is exactly what you want.
No. I want an error if it is neccessary and I did not also ask for erase.
There are at least two cases where this matters;
Flash coreboot with ff:ff MAC for onboard, set it up to download a nifty flashrom-derivative payload that will reflash the MAC with something useful before shipping. This operation should not automatically erase and rewrite any data that was already in the chip.
Add new files to v3 LAR in flash chip, this should also never erase and rewrite data that was in the chip.
I think you could come with even more. :)
Because the user has not requested erase, I think erasing is a critical bug. :\
Look at the GALEP software for comparison.
Yes, everyone knows the galep software is crap for exactly stuff like that. The new version does not allow autoerase anymore.
Too bad, because it is a nifty feature. But can you imagine the customer response if they _forced_ autoerase (like flashrom) ?
//Peter