Date: Wed, 10 Mar 1999 14:34:29 -0700 From: Nate Williams <nate@mt.sri.com> To: Scott Mitchell <rsm@acm.org> Cc: "Jordan K. Hubbard" <jkh@zippy.cdrom.com>, Mike Smith <mike@smith.net.au>, freebsd-mobile@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: compatibility list Message-ID: <199903102134.OAA10931@mt.sri.com> In-Reply-To: <19990310181537.16981@goatsucker.org> References: <Pine.SGI.4.05.9903082011280.327309-100000@waimea.cs.unm.edu> <62408.920964968@zippy.cdrom.com> <19990310181537.16981@goatsucker.org>
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> > > What can I do (as a fan of FreeBSD, and an owner of a Dell Lattitude) to > > > help the pccard code move forward? > > > > Be a capable Unix programmer who hopefully also understands at least > > something about the mechanics of the various PCCARD/CARDBUS > > controllers and range of available cards out there. That's who it > > would take to get the support code merged from PAO into the mainline > > on an ongoing basis and also deal with various user reports when it > > all doesn't work and someone (see above) needs to figure out why. > > Simple testers we have plenty of. EVERYONE is a tester at this > > stage. :) > > Well, I believe I have the programming skills, although I'd have to read up > on the PCMCIA/CardBus stuff, and I'm willing to commit time to this (modulo > getting my thesis and the Xircom ethernet driver done, switching jobs and > moving house in the next few months). Hmm, sounds like you've got no time either. ;) > It's not a single-person job though: from other comments on this > thread, my own reading of the existing code and the general anti-PAO > feeling on this list I guess what's needed is a complete rewrite of > the PCCARD code, as a special case of some generic removable device > support (does this actually exist? is it documented anywhere?) From my point of view, that's going to happen 'eventually', but that is not what is required in the short-term. > Presumably that would be less work in the long run than endless > hacking on the current code. Agreed, but the new codebase doesn't yet exist, although it's designed has been discussed at some lenght. If/when it is implemented and brought into FreeBSD woudl be the time to redo the codebase, *UNLESS* you feel comfortable in being the implementor. > Of course all this is beside the point if FreeBSD is just a 'server > focused' OS, and no-one on the core team really gives a shit about pushing > desktop, let alone laptop, support. I could say something here, but I won't. :) > That may not be the case, but it is the impression a mere user like me > (can't speak for anyone else) gets from reading the lists when these > subjects come up. So, is anyone actively maintaining the current > PCCARD code? I *was* doing it up until 18 months ago, and Mike Smith was apparently going to take over, but he got busy on 'more important' things. Warner Losh has been doing the most lately, so I've been deferring things to him. > Case in point: the macro used to register a PCCARD driver changed > someplace between 3.0 and 3.1 -- if nobody updated the ep driver to > reflect this change, it probably explains why Jordan's getting this > "Driver allocation failed for ep0" error. My point is, if no-one on > core/committers cares about making this stuff happen, there's not much > motivation for the rest of us to "do the work", as we are always > exhorted to do. I think if you have a patch, send it to -mobile and see what happens. If nothing happens, yell louder and hopefully someone will step up to the plate and/or make *you* a comitter if you're changes look good and don't negatively effect the server robustness/stability of FreBSD. :) > So consider me volunteered to do (some of) the work...anyone else who wants > in, please stand up now. That means 'political' and logistical as well as > technical contributions; eg. is the project in a position to loan cards, > PCMCIA specs, etc (laptops?) to those producing the code? Wow, that all's > quite a rant coming from me...time to get back to the thesis I think :) If you are *really* serious about this, I think Mike could be 'persuaded' to send you the PCMCIA specification I bought and sent to him. But, sending it to London wouldn't be cheap, and the specification is 2+ years old. Nate To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-mobile" in the body of the message
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