Date: Sat, 4 Dec 1999 22:42:57 +0100 (CET) From: Wilko Bulte <wilko@yedi.iaf.nl> To: mjacob@feral.com Cc: gallatin@cs.duke.edu, freebsd-scsi@FreeBSD.ORG, freebsd-alpha@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: ISP firmware compiled in as a default.... Message-ID: <199912042142.WAA88557@yedi.iaf.nl> In-Reply-To: <Pine.BSF.4.05.9912041138280.45044-100000@semuta.feral.com> from Matthew Jacob at "Dec 4, 1999 11:43:39 am"
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As Matthew Jacob wrote ... > I'm now wondering whether or not this would be a good idea or not. Right > now, the default is *not* to compile in the firmware. OK, you told me that before. > However, I had a bit of a hard time with the SRM loaded f/w (and this is > the latest) when I had both an internal drive and 2 external tape drives. > This problem went away when I went back to compiling in the f/w which then > downloaded. Did you have both internal AND external devices on the same KZPBA card? FYI: we (== Compaq) don't support this. Obviously this decision is based on the f/w that is in the SRM code. Tests have shown it really does not work well when both internal and external devices are present on the same card. YMMV of course and I obviously don't know what was biting you. > Jason (bless his heart) Thorpe kept on claiming that NetBSD-alpha was > completely broken without the f/w- I never saw such breakage at all and > real active details were not provided, and in fact *you* (Wilko) are the > only one who I know was completely blocked w/o the f/w. I'm apparantly the only one with a machine I cannot load SRM onto with more or less recent Qlogic f/w inside. An exception to the rule obviously. People running older Eval Board alpha's will likely suffer from the same problem. But considering the rumors around former ARC-only systems this might change. Wild guess... > So, I'm in a bit of a quandary now as to what the right thing to do is. Don't shoot me: the right thing to do is to make it possible to boot FreeBSD/alpha from a CDROM. With or without Qlogic firmware FreeBSD/alpha is quickly getting too big to be really practical as far as floppy booting goes. NetBSD can do CDROM booting, but I don't really understand the issues around CDROM bootability. Having fixed the size problem the extra 200Kb bloat becomes somewhat academic I think. People not willing to build a custom kernel for their particular hardware.. well, they should invest a bit of time to work out kernel building in the first place. Added bonus of bootable CDROMs: you can do 'fixit' like work. Might come in handy (considering some recent postings ;-) ;-) > There is the open PR about putting the f/w into kld's- that'd probably be > mostly the right thing to do. Before that happens, though, should the > default be to have the f/w compiled in? It adds ~200K to kernel bloat I'd say the issue is seperated into an installation kernel and a kernel built from source once the system is installed. In the latter case I think we can live without compiled-in f/w, making compiling-in optional for those who really need it (people like me ;-) > (although this could be cut down by only compiling in 1040 f/w instead of > including 1080, 2100 and 2200 f/w as well). Hm. The DEC-sanctioned cards (as far as SRM booting goes, so for system disks) only use 1040's if I'm not mistaken. So this might be the most practical short-term solution. How much would 1040-only f/w add to the installation kernel ? > Opinions? Well, some thought. Hope they are somewhat helpful. > -matt Wilko -- | / o / / _ Arnhem, The Netherlands - Powered by FreeBSD - |/|/ / / /( (_) Bulte WWW : http://www.tcja.nl http://www.freebsd.org To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-scsi" in the body of the message
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