Date: Fri, 6 Nov 1998 21:18:58 +0200 (SAT) From: Robert Nordier <rnordier@nordier.com> To: chuckr@mat.net (Chuck Robey) Cc: jkh@time.cdrom.com, mike@smith.net.au, freebsd-current@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: ficl Message-ID: <199811061919.VAA02364@ceia.nordier.com> In-Reply-To: <1602.910369694@time.cdrom.com> from "Jordan K. Hubbard" at "Nov 6, 98 08:28:14 am"
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Jordan K. Hubbard wrote: > > I'm watching all your work using ficl with a lot of interest, but I > > don't understand the operating environment of programs at that early > > stage of boot too well. Is the filesystem available? Can any use be > > made of other Unix utils at all? What devices are available? > > Obviously, screen input/output is *somewhat* available, right? > > You can open() files and do read() calls on them; I don't think > write() is supported yet. You can't rely on anything outside of the > bootstrap unless it can be open()'d and you certainly can't run > ordinary unix utilities from it. I'm not sure about devices and > filesystems available - that's more of a Mike/Robert question. Really more Mike's area than mine, which is mostly the low-level i386 stuff. Devices: Apart from video and serial consoles, disk and net devices are currently provided for. Though, at least on the i386, it should be reasonably easy to add access to anything that has BIOS or other firmware support. Filesystems: cd9960, dosfs, nfs, and ufs; as well as zipfs and tftp. Adding read-only support for a local filesystem needs ~700 lines of C at the moment. -- Robert Nordier To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-current" in the body of the message
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