Date: Mon, 23 Oct 1995 18:17:44 +0930 (CST) From: Michael Smith <msmith@atrad.adelaide.edu.au> To: hackers@freebsd.org Subject: New userconfig Message-ID: <199510230847.SAA02381@genesis.atrad.adelaide.edu.au>
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Ok, time to ruffle the feathers again 8) In my quest to make the 'visual' userconfig as snuggly and friendly as possible, I'd like to request a boon of the directional philosophers. The background : In order to meaninfully interpret the values assigned the basic ISA device parameters, I currently make the following assumptions : If a parameter is -1, the driver does not use the parameter. It is never relevant, and is never consulted. If a parameter is -2, the driver has a compiled-in default for this parameter, but the default can be overridden by setting the value to another value. Currently, of course, this doesn't happen. It could be argued that it should never happen, either, but until a device registration scheme is in place that provides a better technique, this is it. Joerg has kindly provided details for modifying config(8) to recognise 'auto' and 'none' as alternatives to '?'. I'd like to ask further for comments (and advice) on setting the _default_ for nonspecified parameters to 'none' (-1), rather than the currently ambiguous state (some -1, some 0). Arguments about whether -1 and -2 map to "legit" parameter values should be accompanied by examples of _ISA_ hardware that live at such addresses, or have such aperture sizes, and are at all likely to be supported by FreeBSD. ++++ Julian, specifically to you, and generally to anyone else working on device driver registration issues - is there a "better way", that takes advantage of the devfs concept/support/etc? -- ]] Mike Smith, Software Engineer msmith@atrad.adelaide.edu.au [[ ]] Genesis Software genesis@atrad.adelaide.edu.au [[ ]] High-speed data acquisition and [[ ]] realtime instrument control (ph/fax) +61-8-267-3039 [[ ]] My car has "demand start" -Terry Lambert UNIX: live FreeBSD or die! [[
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