Date: Fri, 5 Dec 1997 18:14:05 -0700 From: Nate Williams <nate@mt.sri.com> To: Daniel Zappala <zappala@cs.uoregon.edu> Cc: freebsd-mobile@freebsd.org Subject: Re: CardBus machines -- still unclear Message-ID: <199712060114.SAA03748@mt.sri.com> In-Reply-To: <199712052343.PAA13451@cs.uoregon.edu> References: <199712052343.PAA13451@cs.uoregon.edu>
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> I would very much like to get an IBM 560X and am still unclear > whether I can boot any version of FreeBSD on it. It'll boot fine. :) > > If the 560X is the new CardBus machine, then it's not supported in > > FreeBSD. Newer CardBus/PCI machines are not supported 'out of the box' > > yet. The same goes for new 760's if they are also CardBus. > > I take it this means the OS will boot, but any cards in the slot > (i.e. a NIC) won't be recognized. Right. However, all is not lost w/regard to the cards. (See below) > However, my understanding of CardBus is that it is supposed to be > backward compatible with PC-Card, so I'm unclear on why you couldn't > use 16-bit PCMCIA cards in this slot. In particular, the IBM machine > says you can use either 2 16-bit cards or 1 32-bit card. You can, but the FreeBSD probe code didn't (!) know to look in the PCI domain for the card. That changed earlier this week for *ONE* particular PCI/CardBus controller, the CLPD6832 (?). However, adding other CardBus controllers should be pretty easy to do, but I don't have the hardware and/or docs to do it. > > USB isn't critical, and I can disable the CardBus stuff, so it works > > really well. > > > > When you're buying a laptop, there are two *critical* things to look at: > > > - The pcic type (PCMCIA interface chip). Toshiba, Dell, NEC, Sharp, > > and IBM all use parts that are compatible with FreeBSD. Acer (at > > least) does not. YMMV; if at all possible, boot a FreeBSD kernel > > built with pcic support in order to find out what you're looking at. > > So what can I expect from a "CardBus machine": IFF the CardBus machine has a mode to setup itself up to look like an ISA/PCMCIA controller it'll work 'out of the box'. If it doesn't, you need to write the code to set it into that mode (and the framework for this is now in place). Finally, at some point in the future the controller probe code will *also* be modified to recognize PCI/CardBus controllers in ISA emulation mode at PCI address spaces, if that proves to work. It seems to work with some cards, although I prefer the current solution of forcing the cards to appear in the ISA address space. So, to answer your question. > a) have it not boot the OS > b) have it boot the OS but not recognize the NIC or other PCMCIA cards > c) have it boot the OS and recognize any 16-bit cards, but not be able > to use CardBus cards. > > I'd love to hear the answer is b :-) The answer is b) with 99% assurance, and c) possibly. Your best bet is to take the PAO boot floppy (see http://www.jp.freebsd.org/PAO) and see if it recognizes things. If it does, there's a good chance it *might* be supported in FreeBSD (the PAO code does some PCI probe things that the stock FreeBSD code doesn't yet). Nate
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