Date: Mon, 7 Dec 1998 11:14:49 -0500 (EST) From: "Matthew N. Dodd" <winter@jurai.net> To: Doug White <dwhite@resnet.uoregon.edu> Cc: Mike Smith <mike@smith.net.au>, current@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: KLD - what's the idea? Message-ID: <Pine.BSF.4.02.9812071102250.17054-100000@sasami.jurai.net> In-Reply-To: <Pine.BSF.4.03.9812062227530.22359-100000@resnet.uoregon.edu>
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On Sun, 6 Dec 1998, Doug White wrote: > On Mon, 7 Dec 1998, Matthew N. Dodd wrote: > > > How critical to the boot process are network cards? > > Very, if you're netbooting. If the cost to implement a solution to loading firmware code from the kernel is too high for the returns (ie: what devices are likely to require firmware code loads) then it may be sufficient to say that "Booting from some token ring cards (TMS380, SMC TokenElite) and ATM cards (FORE) is not supported." Regardless, I am still looking for any solution that would let me demand load files from the kernel depending on the devices present. For example, my textbox, having gods own assload of cards in it right now would have something like: /boot/tez.conf: MADGE_SMART_RINGNODE /boot/fw/madge.dnld PROTEON_P1990 /boot/fw/proteon.dnld PROTEON_P1392 /boot/fw/proteon.dnld COMPAQ_NETFLEX_TR /boot/fw/compaq_tr.dnld COMPAQ_NETFLEX_ENET /boot/fw/compaq_enet.dnld When the driver detectects a card that needs to be feed some firmware it reads '/boot/tez.conf', loads the file, dumps the code to the card, and unloads the file. In this case (the TMS380 family of devices) if the adapter is RAM based (no firmware onboard) the card is pretty much useless for doing anything until the code is loaded. Even reading the MAC address requires firmware. (Well, the real MAC address, not the BIA (Burned In Address) which may or may not be used as the MAC address.) -- | Matthew N. Dodd | 78 280Z | 75 164E | 84 245DL | FreeBSD/NetBSD/Sprite/VMS | | winter@jurai.net | This Space For Rent | ix86,sparc,m68k,pmax,vax | | http://www.jurai.net/~winter | Are you k-rad elite enough for my webpage? | To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-current" in the body of the message
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