Date: Thu, 5 Oct 1995 17:32:45 -0700 (PDT) From: Jake Hamby <jehamby@lightside.com> To: Dave Hayes <dave@elxr.jpl.nasa.gov> Cc: freebsd-hardware@freebsd.org Subject: Re: New PCI cards and FreeBSD Message-ID: <Pine.AUX.3.91.951005172552.22726A-100000@covina.lightside.com> In-Reply-To: <199510060016.RAA04750@elxr.jpl.nasa.gov>
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On Thu, 5 Oct 1995, Dave Hayes wrote: > Jake Hamby <jehamby@lightside.com> writes: > >Hey, another JPL'er using FreeBSD! Welcome aboard! > > I'd love to get most of JPL using this stuff. It's great, and secure > (compared to SunOS) too. Heck yeah! Sun hasn't done anything with SunOS since 1990, and it shows. Unless you can "migrate" to Solaris (which is not that bad, assuming you have a SPARC 20, 48MB of RAM, and are willing to learn its quirks), then NetBSD/sparc remains the best hope. Similarly, FreeBSD is the best hope for PC's as desktop Unix boxes, surpassing Linux in multiuser and network performance. > >The EtherExpress 16 is supported with a line like: > > > >device ix0 at isa? port 0x300 net irq 10 iomem 0xd0000 iosiz 32768 vector > >ixintr > > But that's for ISA only. PCI stuff is all wipe your butt for you auto > configured, which is good if it works. Yep, but there are precious few PCI-native devices in FreeBSD (or Linux for that matter). > >You didn't mention if these devices were recognized by the GENERIC > >kernel. Are they? > > I thought that was the only kernel on the CDROM? It is. I'm sorry, I thought you were trying to build a custom kernel (that's what my chapter was about, and I'm afraid it's a little on my brain). You can change port and IRQ from "boot -c" but if the device isn't recognized at all, there's not much you can do. Try the "probe" command with "ix0" and "ahc0" and see if it picks them up as ISA-emulation devices. > >By the way, the only PCI-specific drivers I see, are > >the NCR 53C810/53C825 SCSI controller (which I've got in a Micron 100MHz > >Pentium here, works great!) and the DEC DC21040 PCI Ethernet adapter. > >All other cards are supported through the PCI->ISA bridge, > apparently. > > Yes, how do you use this? The PCI->ISA bridge allows devices on the PCI bus to look like ISA devices. For example, an old DOS program doesn't need to know you have a PCI video card, it accesses it just like any other. Similarly, most PCI cards I've seen, will act like a similar ISA card, except with a 32-bit datapath. That's why I was hoping your cards would be recognized by the kernel as ISA cards. > Dave Hayes -- Institutional NETworks - Section 394 -- JPL/NASA - Pasadena CA > dave@elxr.jpl.nasa.gov dave@jato.jpl.nasa.gov ...usc!elroy!dxh > > Nasrudin was standing outside the window of a beautiful girl, playing the > guitar and serenading her. Someone asked: "Why do you not ask her to marry > you?" Nasrudin replied: "I have thought of that; but, if she agreed, what > would I do with my evenings?" > >
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