Date: Tue, 18 Oct 2005 14:30:33 -0700 From: Brooks Davis <brooks@one-eyed-alien.net> To: Rink Springer <rink@stack.nl> Cc: ed@fxq.nl, freebsd-arch@freebsd.org Subject: Re: FreeBSD/xbox in 7-CURRENT: Proposed plan Message-ID: <20051018213033.GA14274@odin.ac.hmc.edu> In-Reply-To: <20051018211534.GA59335@il.fontys.nl> References: <20051018211534.GA59335@il.fontys.nl>
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--0OAP2g/MAC+5xKAE Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Disposition: inline Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable On Tue, Oct 18, 2005 at 11:16:22PM +0200, Rink Springer wrote: > Hi everyone, >=20 > As the hype of FreeBSD/xbox has mostly cooled down, I'd like to bring > this support to 7-CURRENT without having to rely on external patches. >=20 > In order to do this, I propose the following plan (priority 1 is > highest, 3 is lowest): >=20 > 1) I intend to clean up the patches as to eliminate 'options XBOX'; with > minor effort I can make the port smart enough to auto-detect whether > its running on an XBOX by simply looking at PCI ID's as outlined at > http://www.xbox-linux.org. This means the FreeBSD/i386 and > FreeBSD/xbox kernels will be identical, which makes releases a lot > easier. >=20 > 2) Port the Linux forcedeth.c driver to FreeBSD. This would mean a > GPL-ed driver in the tree; but since no one has specs or wants to > release them (trust me, I've tried), I feel this is our best way. And > nForce-motherboard owners would benefit from this very much as well. > Once we have a working driver, the forcedeth.c maintainer Manfred > Spraul claimed to be willing to talk about a possible BSD license; > possibly Nvidia will do the same to their modifications in the code. >=20 > 3) The kernel would still need one device missing from GENERIC, and this > is the 'xboxfb' framebuffer driver. I wish to merge it as a VESA-like > module so it can benefit from the syscons(4) framework. However, this > isn't as easy as I hoped; for the time being, I'd like to stick to the > 'xboxfb' driver which will only install itself if running on a XBOX. > Assistence on this is very welcomed. >=20 > A currently patched Linux Cromwell BIOS (I am planning to continuing work= ing > with the team to clean up the code and make a 2.41 release) is capable > of booting FreeBSD kernels from CD, network and UFS filesystems, so > there is little trouble in getting your XBOX to boot FreeBSD... >=20 > Would the FreeBSD project accept this plan to import FreeBSD/xbox within > the FreeBSD/i386 port, bringing support into -CURRENT without the need > for any patches? Of course, suggestions are very welcome; I'd like to > see this in CURRENT :) We probably wouldn't be willing to ship the GPL'd code in GENERIC so I can't see the release CDs supporting this, but I don't see any obvious problems with bringing in enough code that rolling an xbox CD was easy. -- Brooks --=20 Any statement of the form "X is the one, true Y" is FALSE. PGP fingerprint 655D 519C 26A7 82E7 2529 9BF0 5D8E 8BE9 F238 1AD4 --0OAP2g/MAC+5xKAE Content-Type: application/pgp-signature Content-Disposition: inline -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v1.2.1 (GNU/Linux) iD8DBQFDVWl4XY6L6fI4GtQRAkunAJ96NgQGbicm6X6wrWe5d5yxJ0IyiACfaeLA FDz9PIHqJTchsQHRk0RT5RE= =9sdx -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- --0OAP2g/MAC+5xKAE--
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