From owner-freebsd-alpha Wed Jan 20 01:31:40 1999 Return-Path: Received: (from majordom@localhost) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.8/8.8.8) id BAA01968 for freebsd-alpha-outgoing; Wed, 20 Jan 1999 01:31:40 -0800 (PST) (envelope-from owner-freebsd-alpha@FreeBSD.ORG) Received: from nlsystems.com (nlsys.demon.co.uk [158.152.125.33]) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.8/8.8.8) with ESMTP id BAA01963 for ; Wed, 20 Jan 1999 01:31:37 -0800 (PST) (envelope-from dfr@nlsystems.com) Received: from localhost (dfr@localhost) by nlsystems.com (8.9.1/8.8.5) with SMTP id JAA50942; Wed, 20 Jan 1999 09:32:10 GMT Date: Wed, 20 Jan 1999 09:32:10 +0000 (GMT) From: Doug Rabson To: "Bruce M. Walter" cc: "Justin T. Gibbs" , alpha@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: AHC/WD driver status... In-Reply-To: Message-ID: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Sender: owner-freebsd-alpha@FreeBSD.ORG Precedence: bulk X-Loop: FreeBSD.org On Tue, 19 Jan 1999, Bruce M. Walter wrote: > First off, while I'm getting these messages directly in email and am > a member of -alpha I *DON'T* get them via the list, although all other > -lists are fine for me. Odd... Strange. I see them in both places. Have you asked majordomo whether your subscription is valid? > [...] > > DR> It would be possible to hammer a pio-only port of wdc into the alpha > DR> but I don't know when that can happen. It has to be moved to the > DR> new-bus framework soon anyway for Garret's i386 isa renovation > DR> project. We'll see. > > I had surmised as much. While I'm glad to see that's the thrust, I'd hate > to see it be the only stone rolling. If you take a step back and look at > what the CAM stuff did for 3.0, it's great. The problem for me (and alot > of others) is that some fairly popular devices haven't been CAMified yet. > (aic and amd, but I'm not pointing fingers ;) > > What I'm specifically getting at is my feeling that IDE support would let > people take better advantage of their alpha machines to further the port > and that even if it is analagous to the old SCSI layer vs. CAM it should > be out there if it's not *too* much work. It would definitely help me > contribute to the port if there was a way to hang cheap IDE drives on my > alpha for development purposes. This is, of course, only a valid posit if > Garrett's atapi work is fairly far from culmination. > > Not wanting to dish up work for others ;) I'm going to try to take a look > at what would be involved in hammering some sort of IDE support in, even > if it's destined to go away soon. I've got Linux and NetBSD on the box > now and to be honest, between those two I'm ready to pull my hair out ;) > > Any pointers? The main issue in porting the existing wdc driver is untangling the wdc/wd/atapi mess into the new device framework. This would be a good way of learning the new system (manpages exist and are not too out-of-date). It really might be better to wait for a bit - I was planning to help Garret with his new isa code on i386 and wdc is the main missing link there too. -- Doug Rabson Mail: dfr@nlsystems.com Nonlinear Systems Ltd. Phone: +44 181 442 9037 To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-alpha" in the body of the message