[lug] compact flash leveling in ubuntu (9.04)?

[Jonathan Corbet]

On Sat, 28 Mar 2009 21:32:42 -0600
bgiles <bgiles at coyotesong.com> wrote:

> Does anyone know how to set up compact flash leveling, or if it's even 
> necessary?  (That is, is the kernel smart enough to recognize that it's 
> talking to a CF drive?)

There are two possible situations here:

 - You have a flash drive which has been disguised as a normal ATA (or
   SATA) drive.  In this case, you're not really talking to the drive,
   you're talking to a flash translation layer which tries to make the
   drive look like something it's not.  One of the things the FTL does
   is wear leveling.  Some of them do a rather better job at it than
   others.  But it's not something you have any control over once
   you've made your purchasing decision.

 - You're dealing directly with the flash drive - pretty uncommon if
   you've bought the drive separately.  In this case you need a
   filesystem which is intended for direct-access flash: jffs2, yaffs,
   or ubifs.

The first situation above is almost certainly yours, though, so there's
not much to be done.

jon