[Soc-coordination] MTD Installation

[Per Andersson]

(This presentational e-mail is sent to debian-boot,
soc-coordination and pkg-fso-maint.)

Hi there!

For those that don't know, my name is Per and I am at my
final year studying a master's degree in computer science.

Last year I did a (successful) GSoC project called Debian
NAS. [0] After GSoC I started researching how d-i could
partition and install to MTD flash. Sadly I got bogged down
with other things so the project got stalled. Since I don't
have anything planned for the summer I thought that it
would be nice to do this as a GSoC project!

My involvement in Debian now is fairly humble but steady.
I am now the maintainer of packages micro-evtd and
uboot-envtools. Debian related social activities I have been
up to include organising a Debian devroom at FSCONS [1]
where I also gave a talk about how I got involved in Debian
and my GSoC project [2]. At Last.fm, where I do my master
thesis, I have given a packaging crash course, which was
well received.

My closest Debian related plans, besides this summer's, is
to join the pkg-fso-maint group. Since a few weeks back I run
Debian on my phone!

Enough with the presentation already!!

As stated above, I am interested in pursuing the MTD flash
partitioning and installation project during this summer
(and after as well). [3]

So far I have done a svn checkout of d-i and taken quick read
throughs of partman-lvm and partman-auto-lvm. I also found
some documentation in installer/doc/devel/partman which I
have hade a quick glance at. Tools for UBI [4] are already in
Debian (mtd-utils). Regarding UBI I have found docs
on the Linux MTD page [5], which I also have on my toread
list. The tools for UBI already exist in Debian though
(mtd-utils).

I happily receive tips, reads and guidance in how partman is
built and works. I hope that questions about this is ok (either
here or on IRC).

Take care now!


Best regards,
Per

[0] http://lists.alioth.debian.org/pipermail/soc-coordination/2008-September/000383.html
[1] http://fscons.org/
[2] http://giss.tv/dmmdb/contents/lightnin%20talks%20part%201-dl.ogg
[3] http://wiki.debian.org/SummerOfCode2009/MTDInstallation
[4] Unsorted Block Images, sort of like LVM for MTD flash
[5] http://linux-mtd.infradead.org/