Skip site navigation (1)Skip section navigation (2)
Date:      Tue, 5 May 1998 21:25:52 -0700
From:      John-Mark Gurney <gurney_j@efn.org>
To:        Stefan Bethke <stefan@promo.de>
Cc:        Luigi Rizzo <luigi@labinfo.iet.unipi.it>, freebsd-hackers@FreeBSD.ORG
Subject:   Re: ISA-PnP w\o BIOS support?
Message-ID:  <19980505212552.24072@hydrogen.nike.efn.org>
In-Reply-To: <220969.3103357457@d254.promo.de>; from Stefan Bethke on Tue, May 05, 1998 at 11:44:17AM %2B0200
References:  <220969.3103357457@d254.promo.de>

next in thread | previous in thread | raw e-mail | index | archive | help
Stefan Bethke scribbled this message on May 5:
> However, my expectation was that the card would have been configured
> automagically, despite the lack of the BIOS; or, more specifically, I would
> expect the PnP code to auto-configure all PnP devices if there seems to be
> no PnP BIOS support.

FreeBSD contains code the configure PnP cards, but doesn't have the
smarts on what parts of the system are free for the card to use... what
happens if you have an unsupported arcnet card in the machine that you
use in dos mode?  how is FreeBSD suppose to know about that card and
not use the same resources that the card uses...

of course you will counter with, "but Win95 does this!", yes, they do,
but they also happen to have all manufacturers writing drivers and
detection routines for them so they can be pretty sure about what
resources are free...  Win95 will have the same problem FreeBSD will
if you stick a card of your own make (i.e. NO win95 drivers) into a
machine...  FreeBSD just doesn't hide the problem...

> Is there any particular reason (besides lack of interest or resources) for
> no implementing this?

well, the code that deals with the isa bus (and all busses for that
matter) is actually going under a complete rewrite...  once that is done
we should be able to support autoconfiguration of PnP devices...

-- 
  John-Mark Gurney                      Modem Rev/FAX: +1 541 346 9237
  Cu Networking					  P.O. Box 5693, 97405

  Live in Peace, destroy Micro$oft, support free software, run FreeBSD
	    Don't trust anyone you don't have the source for

To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org
with "unsubscribe freebsd-hackers" in the body of the message



Want to link to this message? Use this URL: <https://mail-archive.FreeBSD.org/cgi/mid.cgi?19980505212552.24072>