Date: Fri, 12 Sep 1997 05:49:01 +0000 (GMT) From: Terry Lambert <tlambert@primenet.com> To: mike@smith.net.au (Mike Smith) Cc: tlambert@primenet.com, luigi@labinfo.iet.unipi.it, mike@smith.net.au, gurney_j@resnet.uoregon.edu, perhaps@yes.no, freebsd-hackers@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: PnP support Message-ID: <199709120549.WAA09342@usr08.primenet.com> In-Reply-To: <199709120432.OAA01173@word.smith.net.au> from "Mike Smith" at Sep 12, 97 02:32:28 pm
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> > The reason that this is a hard problem is that dynamic reconfiguration > > of dynamically-reconfigurable-but-not-PnP hardware makes it difficult > > for FreeBSD to coexist with other OS's, which would not know about > > these devices ability to move around. > > This is actually such a trivial issue that I don't consider it worth > worrying about. If you have a particular OS in mind, and a specific > test case to demonstrate your problem, a workaround might be in order. He was talking about reating such hardware as an extension within the PnP framework: ie: relocate anything that can be relocated, not just anything that can be relocated via PnP. A specific example might be a AE-3 ethernet card and DOS. Change the IRQ on the card, and when DOS comes up, the driver load in the AUTOEXEC.BAT has the wrong IRQ parameter. > These configurations are generally read from external EEPROMs on device > reset. Rebooting involves such a reset, and it is unlikely that > FreeBSD will be rewriting said EEPROMs in the near future. Actually, that's exactly what were were talking about when we started talking about relocating non-PnP soft configurable devices. > > You probe up the hierarchy, and attach down. Pretty simple. > > No. You probe from least intrusive to most intrusive, and use the > lesser intrusive probes to eliminate places for sticking your fingers. If you look at the hierarchy I denoted in my previous posting (it looked like a directory tree), you'll see that you are saying the exact sam thing I just said. 8-). [ ... ] > This is where the ECSD stuff comes into play on modern systems. I am > trying to world as we speak so that I can start using Jonathan's vm86 > BIOS call support to talk to this. Cool. This is exactly the soloution I think is called for. Let me know how it goes; if you have specific changes you want tested, I can probably help out. Terry Lambert terry@lambert.org --- Any opinions in this posting are my own and not those of my present or previous employers.
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