Date: Sat, 26 Jul 2003 21:02:19 -0700 (PDT) From: Frank Mayhar <frank@exit.com> To: hackers@freebsd.org Subject: Device driver advice needed. Message-ID: <200307270402.h6R42JN2075336@realtime.exit.com>
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I have become the owner of a Specialix I/O8+ PCI multiport serial card. I originally thought that FreeBSD had a driver for that card, but it turns out that the si(4) driver only supports the older SI/XIO and SX cards. Fortunately, Linux has an I/O8+ driver and I'm in contact with the author, Roger Wolff. While there isn't any documentation available for the I/O8+ itself, there is documentation for the CD1865 chipset it uses. Between that, the Linux source and Roger's apparent willingness to answer questions, I should be able to come up with a working driver without too terribly much effort. I'm targeting 4-stable, since that's the platform for which I need support. I had originally thought I would add the I/O8+ support to the existing si(4) driver, but I just learned that the I/O8+ is sufficiently different from the SX series that Roger wrote two different drivers for Linux. Now I'm strongly leaning toward writing a new driver, call it "sx(4)." For 4-stable, I'll need a new major to be allocated, although I understand that in 5.x devfs eliminates that requirement. Still, for the moment, I'm stuck with 4-stable. I also need some advice as to how to name the devices in /dev. The si(4) driver uses /dev/ttyA* and /dev/cuaA*; perusing MAKEDEV it appears that I might use /dev/ttyG* and /dev/cuaG*. Is there a convention I should use? Finally, I've also come across an SDK for the SX series, with documentation, that includes support for the newer SX+ card. I don't have one of those and therefore can't test the code, but it appears relatively easy to add the support for the newer card to the existing driver. If someone wants to pick it up I would be happy to hand it to them. Peter Wemm, who ported the si(4) driver from BSD/OS would be the logical choice, if he's interested. If I have time and am ambitious, I might add the support myself, but that's a pretty big "if." Suggestions and advice solicited. Theses cheerfully roundfiled. -- Frank Mayhar frank@exit.com http://www.exit.com/ Exit Consulting http://www.gpsclock.com/ http://www.exit.com/blog/frank/
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