From: noselasd@frisurf.no   
      
   In article <4021121B.2409D0A@mediasec.de>, Jan C. Vorbrüggen wrote:   
   > Does anybody have more technical info, or pointers to such, on the flash   
   > file system used by the MERs? The reason I ask is that JPL's explanation   
   > for Spirit's problem states that mounting such a file system uses system   
   > memory proportional to the number of files in it - at least, that seems   
   > to be the leading theory supported by experimentation. It would be the   
   > first file system I know of with that property, but perhaps the requirement   
   > to reduce write cycles on the flash lead to it. It also seems strange that   
   > the MER software engineers have so little understanding on exactly how   
   > the flash file system works that they cannot say with authority whether   
   > this theory is correct or not.   
      
   When your software is at Mars, you really don't have a very good   
   way of debugging it. And it is rather common for filesystems to do this.   
   It basically works like if you call opendir or readdir the kernel   
   reads the inode for that directory. That inode contains "pointers"   
   to all its files, if it's alot of files... it gets big.   
      
   --   
   Vennlig hilsen/Best Regards   
   Nils Olav Selåsdal    
   System Engineer   
   UtelSystems a/s   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)