From owner-freebsd-current Mon Jul 21 10:40:25 1997 Return-Path: Received: (from root@localhost) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.5/8.8.5) id KAA27427 for current-outgoing; Mon, 21 Jul 1997 10:40:25 -0700 (PDT) Received: from genesis.atrad.adelaide.edu.au (genesis.atrad.adelaide.edu.au [129.127.96.120]) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.5/8.8.5) with ESMTP id KAA27413 for ; Mon, 21 Jul 1997 10:40:19 -0700 (PDT) Received: (from msmith@localhost) by genesis.atrad.adelaide.edu.au (8.8.5/8.7.3) id DAA24549; Tue, 22 Jul 1997 03:10:01 +0930 (CST) From: Michael Smith Message-Id: <199707211740.DAA24549@genesis.atrad.adelaide.edu.au> Subject: Re: I am contemplating the following change... In-Reply-To: from Warner Losh at "Jul 21, 97 11:13:51 am" To: imp@rover.village.org (Warner Losh) Date: Tue, 22 Jul 1997 03:10:00 +0930 (CST) Cc: sef@Kithrup.COM, current@FreeBSD.ORG X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.4ME+ PL28 (25)] MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Sender: owner-freebsd-current@FreeBSD.ORG X-Loop: FreeBSD.org Precedence: bulk Warner Losh stands accused of saying: > > I know that the number one PITA when trying to get FreeBSD running on > new systems that I build from random hardware that floats my way is > finding where the @#!$#&!@*#%(* the ethernet card is, and making sure > that the IRQ is the right one. I'd be a lot happier if we just > dropped the irq bit completely from the config file for ethernet cards > and have them be found just like the lp devices are found. At least > as an option. Just for the 'ed' driver, which is probably the most commonly used driver, this is really quite tough. The current probe is intrusive, and will confuse some SCSI controllers, so having it scan for stuff is fairly tough. (Having said that, many of the newer 8390 clone ASICs are easier to probe for). On top of that, working out which interrupt the card is on is not easy. There isn't some convenient register that you can read for this. 8( > Warner -- ]] Mike Smith, Software Engineer msmith@gsoft.com.au [[ ]] Genesis Software genesis@gsoft.com.au [[ ]] High-speed data acquisition and (GSM mobile) 0411-222-496 [[ ]] realtime instrument control. (ph) +61-8-8267-3493 [[ ]] Unix hardware collector. "Where are your PEZ?" The Tick [[