From owner-freebsd-hackers Tue Jun 9 00:32:59 1998 Return-Path: Received: (from majordom@localhost) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.8/8.8.8) id AAA18499 for freebsd-hackers-outgoing; Tue, 9 Jun 1998 00:32:59 -0700 (PDT) (envelope-from owner-freebsd-hackers@FreeBSD.ORG) Received: from nlsystems.com (nlsys.demon.co.uk [158.152.125.33]) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.8/8.8.8) with ESMTP id AAA18382; Tue, 9 Jun 1998 00:31:58 -0700 (PDT) (envelope-from dfr@nlsystems.com) Received: from herring.nlsystems.com (herring.nlsystems.com [10.0.0.2]) by nlsystems.com (8.8.8/8.8.5) with SMTP id IAA06730; Tue, 9 Jun 1998 08:30:03 +0100 (BST) Date: Tue, 9 Jun 1998 08:30:03 +0100 (BST) From: Doug Rabson To: Atsushi Furuta cc: mike@smith.net.au, itojun@itojun.org, core@FreeBSD.ORG, hackers@FreeBSD.ORG, tech-jp@jp.freebsd.org Subject: Re: new config In-Reply-To: <199806090657.PAA27116@sras63.sra.co.jp> Message-ID: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Sender: owner-freebsd-hackers@FreeBSD.ORG Precedence: bulk X-Loop: FreeBSD.ORG On Tue, 9 Jun 1998, Atsushi Furuta wrote: > >> In article <199806090414.VAA00467@antipodes.cdrom.com>, > Mike Smith writes: > > > Newconfig imposes very strict hierarchical structure on the system, and > > whilst well-geared towards a static configuration, is much less well > > suited to dynamic operation (my evaluation only). Bearing in mind that > > it has been at least a year since I had anything to do with newconfig, > > I'd be interested in more clarification. > > Please tell me your definition of "static/dynamic configuration" in > this context. > > My understanding: > > static configuration -> to give parameters in compile time > dynamic configuration -> to give parameters in boot time > > Is this correct? My understanding is that static configuration means that drivers are built into the kernel and device instances (e.g. sio0, sio1) are fixed at compile time. Dynamic configuration for me means that both drivers and device instances can be added to the system at any time. My biggest problem with the new config system is that the device hierarchy must be declared in full in the config file and must be matched in the source code. The hierarchy is encoded in two seperate places. My dynamic configuration system which will prototype in FreeBSD/alpha does this slightly differently. The bus/device hierarchy grows downward from the root as each bus probes its devices and attaches them (some of which will be subordinate busses). The config file currently just declares which drivers should be compiled into the system statically. Each driver knows for itself which bus type it is relavent to. -- Doug Rabson Mail: dfr@nlsystems.com Nonlinear Systems Ltd. Phone: +44 181 951 1891 Fax: +44 181 381 1039 To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-hackers" in the body of the message