Date: Tue, 9 May 95 16:25:19 MDT From: terry@cs.weber.edu (Terry Lambert) To: rgrimes@gndrsh.aac.dev.com (Rodney W. Grimes) Cc: brian@MediaCity.Com, freebsd-hackers@FreeBSD.org Subject: Re: A question of downloading device drivers Message-ID: <9505092225.AA19871@cs.weber.edu> In-Reply-To: <199505092105.OAA05528@gndrsh.aac.dev.com> from "Rodney W. Grimes" at May 9, 95 02:05:35 pm
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> > include the microcode as a giant static array in the device driver 8-( > > Please no, this is what the aic7770 (aha2940 and friends) had to do, but > then you could not get the file from disk easily if you where booting from > this type of adapter. This was a conscious choice for the AIC7770 support. The POST on the cards loads a default microcode image that could be used to bootstrap to the point where the "preferred" microcode could be read from the file system (or preferrably, a VM86() mode would be used to obtain compatability for all controllers, not just AIC7770's running default microcode). A proof, I offer the fact the the darn things boot and run DOS without any special software being necessary. > > download the microcode via an set of ioctls. > > This has been the historical BSD method of doing it. Look on the > 4.4BSD Lite code, there are some programs there to set up the > Excelan EXOS 105 network cards that need to have software down > loaded to them. I think you mean the EXOS 205T boards. Downloading via ioctl() sucks (I know; I happen to be doing it for LKM). Really, it should be done with kernel level vnode I/O, just like the UFS disk quotas. The same is true for any driver on the machine that's not needed for actually booting the machine to the point where it could load more code from disk. Terry Lambert terry@cs.weber.edu --- Any opinions in this posting are my own and not those of my present or previous employers.
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