Date: Wed, 12 Jun 1996 15:36:24 -0700 (MST) From: Terry Lambert <terry@lambert.org> To: tims@achilles.k12.ar.us (Timothy Stoddard) Cc: questions@freebsd.org Subject: Re: PNP Message-ID: <199606122236.PAA06992@phaeton.artisoft.com> In-Reply-To: <31BF402F.2DF6@achilles.k12.ar.us> from "Timothy Stoddard" at Jun 12, 96 05:09:51 pm
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> When will FreeBSD address the PNP cards that are on the market. I have > a SMC ethernet card that I cannot use with FreeBSD simply because it is > PNP. Ask Nate Williams. I believe the code is in -current (which would be "next release", if I'm right). PNP cards don't do squat unless you are running a PNP BIOS as well, since it's the BIOS that resolves the conflicts against on the motherboard devices. Does you box have a PNP BIOS, or do we need to be able to guess what's jumpered where, as well, and do the relocation that a PNP bios would have done without our intervention? The main thing a PNP BIOS does is locate cards where there are holes which depends on your POST order, and can vary from boot to boot. A PNP-BIOS aware OS will look for where the cards are by asking them using the PNP interface. For a motherboard without a PNP BIOS, the OS has to play BIOS for you and relocate things to non-conflicting locations -- impossible if you have any non-PNP cards in the machine. FreeBSD in "PNP-BIOS-aware mode" will use prerelocated cards, but will not, itself, relocate cards (or wouldn't, lat time I saw it -- it refuses to play BIOS for you). Many Micron systems (specifically) locate PNP boards to conflict with the PS/2 mouse port, so even a PNP motherboard can't make things safe. Basically if you use ISA cards, you are potentially screwed. The typical way to handle this (even under Windows95 on a Micron) is to let the PNP BIOS make a "best guess", record the info, turn off the PNP to lock the cards in the best guess location, resolve an conflicts, and then tell the Windows95 "My Computer" "Properties" sheet about anything you had to move (like the Adaptec 2940 that was stomping on IRQ 12 and making the PS/2 mouse fail). Then, you boot BSD and tell it where everything got locked down to (or you boot the PNP BSD, and if your system has a working PNP BIOS, BSD asks the cards where they live). For BSD up to 2.1, you will need to tell it; it won't ask. Terry Lambert terry@lambert.org --- Any opinions in this posting are my own and not those of my present or previous employers.
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