Arch Linux

gummibaerchen

Member

Registered: 2007-07-20

Posts: 109

Intel Turbo Memory + Linux = Speed up?

Hi,

while back, there was this all new Santa Rosa platform and I was desperate to get one of those as those were basically the first laptops available with flash disk (even only 1GiB), which was announce to increase your (actually Vista's) boot time.

So, now I have this 1 GB NAND Flash storage in my laptop, but can't access it.

I think it would be quite cool to put some system stuff there (of that's possible and advisable), if that would speed up booting even more.

So my question is: Has anyone getting this Intel Turbo Memory working with Arch or know success-stories about that from someone using Linux?

Thanks

schivmeister

Developer/TU

From: Singapore

Registered: 2007-05-17

Posts: 971

Website

Re: Intel Turbo Memory + Linux = Speed up?

http://docs.blackfin.uclinux.org/doku.p … nux_kernel

got that as a google result so should that mean we are NOT in the dark? i thought anything non-Vista wasn't capable of harnessing the technology.

---

I need real, proper pen and paper for this.

gummibaerchen

Member

Registered: 2007-07-20

Posts: 109

Re: Intel Turbo Memory + Linux = Speed up?

Thanks, that gives me hope

Also switching to u-boot and change lots of other stuff is quite an effort for not knowing yet how much faster I may boot after.

Anyway, will have some more looks on this and I guess I will finally try it, when I feel very brave!

wuischke

Member

From: Suisse Romande

Registered: 2007-01-06

Posts: 630

Re: Intel Turbo Memory + Linux = Speed up?

Do you know what Blackfin is? I'm no expert, but I'm afraid this is completely unrelated to the x86 platform.

gummibaerchen

Member

Registered: 2007-07-20

Posts: 109

Re: Intel Turbo Memory + Linux = Speed up?

Do you know what Blackfin is? I'm no expert, but I'm afraid this is completely unrelated to the x86 platform.

From wikipedia:

Blackfin refers to a family of 16/32-bit microprocessors with built-in Digital Signal Processor (DSP) functionality

Hmm, ok, also u-boot is a bootloader I only know from OpenMoko, but should also run on my laptop.

Same for the Flash-FS, only thing is that it is not very easy yet to do so, and the amount of time saved will not be that big compared to the amount of time needed to get that working (and updated), so I think I'll leave that for later.

Wikimig

Developer

From: France

Registered: 2004-12-10

Posts: 77

Website

Re: Intel Turbo Memory + Linux = Speed up?

Hello !

I just found out I had 1Go of this "Intel Turbo Memory" in my laptop (MSI GX700) and I must say I would love to use it too! But before even thinking of what to use it for... errr... how do you even access it?

I can see it:

# hwd -e | grep -C 1 turbo
8086:444e Memory controller: Intel Corporation module: -
          Turbo Memory Controller

and

# lspci | grep turbo
03:00.0 Memory controller: Intel Corporation Turbo Memory Controller (rev 01)

and nothing in dmesg.

But that is hardly all I can do ! I don't really want it to be used as intended by Intel as it doesn't look to be as good as said but I would like to get it as a drive. U-boot could then become very interesting. So I guess this could be done without kernel work... right?

EDIT: I just found that too:

# lshal | grep -C 10 turbo
udi = '/org/freedesktop/Hal/devices/pci_8086_444e'
  info.parent = '/org/freedesktop/Hal/devices/pci_8086_2841'  (string)
  info.product = 'Turbo Memory Controller'  (string)
  info.subsystem = 'pci'  (string)
  info.udi = '/org/freedesktop/Hal/devices/pci_8086_444e'  (string)
  info.vendor = 'Intel Corporation'  (string)
  linux.hotplug_type = 2  (0x2)  (int)
  linux.subsystem = 'pci'  (string)
  linux.sysfs_path = '/sys/devices/pci0000:00/0000:00:1c.1/0000:03:00.0'  (string)
  pci.device_class = 5  (0x5)  (int)
  pci.device_protocol = 0  (0x0)  (int)
  pci.device_subclass = 128  (0x80)  (int)
  pci.linux.sysfs_path = '/sys/devices/pci0000:00/0000:00:1c.1/0000:03:00.0'  (string)
  pci.product = 'Turbo Memory Controller'  (string)
  pci.product_id = 17486  (0x444e)  (int)
  pci.subsys_product_id = 17486  (0x444e)  (int)
  pci.subsys_vendor = 'Intel Corporation'  (string)
  pci.subsys_vendor_id = 32902  (0x8086)  (int)
  pci.vendor = 'Intel Corporation'  (string)
  pci.vendor_id = 32902  (0x8086)  (int)

Last edited by Wikimig (2008-10-21 21:59:57)

Fackamato

Member

Registered: 2006-03-31

Posts: 579

Re: Intel Turbo Memory + Linux = Speed up?

There's still no support for this eh?

The only thing I can find on lkml is this: http://lkml.indiana.edu/hypermail/linux … 01887.html