Date: Tue, 09 Jun 1998 13:21:42 +0900 From: Jun-ichiro Itoh <itojun@itojun.org> To: core@FreeBSD.ORG Cc: itojun@itojun.org Subject: new config Message-ID: <9929.897366102@cardamom.itojun.org>
next in thread | raw e-mail | index | archive | help
Hello, this is Jun-ichiro Itoh. What is the plan for "config" program? Specifically, when will FreeBSD move to "new config" which is used by NetBSD or BSDI? On June 3rd, there was FreeBSD BOF at Interop98 Tokyo, and it became very clear that many project has been stucked due to the fact FreeBSD is using old config. For example (this is basically summary of discussion): - With old config, the order of probe/attach is defined sorely by the type of bus, say, pci_configure() then isa_configure(). There are devices that are not happy with this method, such as cardbus controller. - PAO/laptop support people would like to have separate bus type for pccard and cardbus. Cardbus people feels that they cannot make progress any more without bus separation. Current probe/attach mechanism used for laptop support is not clean enough, and very hard to understand. Also, this is affected by order-of-probe problem (the previous item). (pccard attach routine fills intr/port information and calls isa attach routines, basically) - Cannot pass "flags" field to pci devices. - isapnp/pci should have a separate bustype from isa, of course. - It is becoming really hard to port something from/to FreeBSD to/from NetBSD or BSDI. - There are many bus kind of hardware coming, for example, usb or IEEE1394. If we don't have separate bus type for them, config file will become too ugly. NetBSD usb team uses bus named "usb" for this, and it looks really clean. - New config gives a cleaner way to define relationship between "parent" device and "child" device. This must be incorporated for cleaner wdc/wd disk/atapi/whatever structure, and for parallel-port bus. - Having foo_softc[NFOO] is A BAD THING, thinking about pci/isapnp devices. We must avoid this. - The way to register interrupt is different between pci device and isa device. It is cumbersome. I understand that FreeBSD-current kernel is targetted toward LKM-centric approach, but I believe new config is inevitable for future development of FreeBSD kernel. I think this is the last chance to incorporate new config, it must be done before moving everything to 3.0. I also understand that it needs a whole bunch of rewrites to every drivers. I propose to have separate repository for a while for "new config" migration (machine and disk is almost ready, hosted by jp.freebsd camp), and merge it into freefall if completed. There's some work has already been done, initial patch is already available so we can start working right away. There are some volunteers from jp.freebsd camp already, and of course I'm waiting for more volunteers to come. If something is already decided about this topic, please give me some pointer for the discussion archive. I do not want to spend my time to this, if it will never be merged into. itojun To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-hackers" in the body of the message
Want to link to this message? Use this URL: <https://mail-archive.FreeBSD.org/cgi/mid.cgi?9929.897366102>