[coreboot] GSoC 2010

[Stefan Reinauer]

On 3/6/10 5:13 PM, Carl-Daniel Hailfinger wrote:
> Since there is so much interest in flashrom as a payload, I'd like to
> know which variant you prefer:
> 1. Full flashrom with GUI as payload (may easily exceed 200 kB
> uncompressed and 60 kB lzma compressed).
> 2. Tiny flashrom stub for remote flashing over serial/network/whatever
> (~10 kB uncompressed and 3 kB lzma compressed, maybe even smaller).
> 3. Load flashrom from an external medium (serial/USB/floppy/whatever) to
> RAM and execute it (no space requirements).
>   
Just having it as a FILO add-on would be the best solution. Then it can
use all the FILO infrastructure (reading lots of filesystems, using a
recovery with a nice menu on a USB stick, integrate with the flash
protection that FILO offers (lock flash writes before FILO executes
external code for example)


> Variant 1 does waste a lot of flash space and is unable to cope with new
> flash chips, and you have no way to recover if flashing goes wrong
> because you can't upgrade flashrom in the first place. It is the only
> standalone solution, though, and it is fast.
> Variant 2 is essentially a stripped down SerialICE with one or two extra
> commands. Rather slow, but you can upgrade the controlling flashrom app
> on the master computer (and test patches) without having to mess with
> the contents of the flash in the slave (to be reflashed) computer.
> Besides that, it allows even such stuff as PCI card reflashing (for gPXE
> and stuff).
> Variant 3 has a high initial load time, but flashing will be fast. No
> guarantees on how to recover if flashrom crashes or exits prematurely,
> though.
>   
I agree all those variants have some drawbacks...

Stefan