From owner-freebsd-stable@FreeBSD.ORG Mon Oct 9 22:54:02 2006 Return-Path: X-Original-To: freebsd-stable@freebsd.org Delivered-To: freebsd-stable@freebsd.org Received: from mx1.FreeBSD.org (mx1.freebsd.org [216.136.204.125]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 0F5C216A69F for ; Mon, 9 Oct 2006 22:54:02 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from jhb@freebsd.org) Received: from server.baldwin.cx (66-23-211-162.clients.speedfactory.net [66.23.211.162]) by mx1.FreeBSD.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 6EDCE43D45 for ; Mon, 9 Oct 2006 22:54:01 +0000 (GMT) (envelope-from jhb@freebsd.org) Received: from zion.baldwin.cx (zion.baldwin.cx [192.168.0.7]) (authenticated bits=0) by server.baldwin.cx (8.13.6/8.13.6) with ESMTP id k99MrmOM081368; Mon, 9 Oct 2006 18:53:58 -0400 (EDT) (envelope-from jhb@freebsd.org) From: John Baldwin To: freebsd-stable@freebsd.org Date: Mon, 9 Oct 2006 18:29:43 -0400 User-Agent: KMail/1.9.1 References: <20061005151925.GA1156@FS.denninger.net> <20061005190822.GA15547@icarus.home.lan> <20061005202144.GA11105@FS.denninger.net> In-Reply-To: <20061005202144.GA11105@FS.denninger.net> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Content-Disposition: inline Message-Id: <200610091829.44186.jhb@freebsd.org> X-Greylist: Sender succeeded SMTP AUTH authentication, not delayed by milter-greylist-2.0.2 (server.baldwin.cx [192.168.0.1]); Mon, 09 Oct 2006 18:53:58 -0400 (EDT) X-Virus-Scanned: ClamAV 0.88.3/2016/Mon Oct 9 12:58:54 2006 on server.baldwin.cx X-Virus-Status: Clean X-Spam-Status: No, score=-4.4 required=4.2 tests=ALL_TRUSTED,AWL,BAYES_00 autolearn=ham version=3.1.3 X-Spam-Checker-Version: SpamAssassin 3.1.3 (2006-06-01) on server.baldwin.cx Cc: Karl Denninger Subject: Re: Recommendations for a serial port card you can actually BUY? X-BeenThere: freebsd-stable@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.5 Precedence: list List-Id: Production branch of FreeBSD source code List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Mon, 09 Oct 2006 22:54:02 -0000 On Thursday 05 October 2006 16:21, Karl Denninger wrote: > On Thu, Oct 05, 2006 at 12:08:22PM -0700, Jeremy Chadwick wrote: > > On Thu, Oct 05, 2006 at 10:19:25AM -0500, Karl Denninger wrote: > > > Hi folks; > > > > > > Ok, one of my pet peeves is coming around to bite me again. > > > > > > {snip} > > > > > > I know serial I/O is passe for many, but some of us have applications that > > > actually require it, and can't rationally be moved to anything else due > > > to external hardware considerations. I saw your first e-mail, but I am puzzled as my one rp(4) card works fine (granted, I haven't used it in the past 4-5 months, but it was on a machine running RELENG_6 and served as the serial console for my test machines that I used almost daily). I know of at least one other person for whom rp(4) worked fine on 6.x as I fixed both 6.x and 5.x to properly handle multiple rp(4) cards in a single box (the names for the two cards were clashing in devfs at first). Have you tried the rp(4) driver from the vendor's website btw? The patch that ambrisko@ sent you is an attempt to merge in their changes to the driver in FreeBSD, but it would be good to know if their driver works ok. > FreeBSD's USB support has always been somewhat deficient. For example, > apcupsd can't talk to their UPSs over the USB bus, even though the software > itself knows how, because FreeBSD doesn't know what a UPS is and throws up > its hands when you plug it in. I wasn't aware that the USB to Serial > converters would work - I can try them, but there are a lot of those out > there that don't work right even under Windows - expecting them to under > FreeBSD might be asking too much. I agree that the USB support can be tricky at times. apcupsd does now work with apcupsd on 6.1 and later though. I use it on my server at home. > I gave up on Specialix a number of years ago after similar problems showed > up in some of their drivers for a different OS and they were unwilling to > fix them. Digi has always been pretty solid, but they are passe' now and > while I have a nice stock of ISA interface cards, finding motherboards > with ISA slots is rapidly becoming impossible. I was trying to get the si(4) driver to support the newer adapters recently, but wasn't able to finish that before the person decided to use rp(4) cards instead. > Among the PCI cards only Comtrol appears to be really "in the market" with > anything current, and driver support in FreeBSD doesn't exist - despite the > claim in the Hardware Notes that its "supported", it in fact hasn't worked > properly since 6.0. > > IMHO either FreeBSD's team needs to find a fix for these things or take 'em > out of the supported hardware list so that when people go looking they don't > waste time (and potentially quite a bit of money) buying something that > doesn't function. While you certainly aren't having a good experience, there are counter-examples, so I don't think you can claim that the hardware is completely unsupported. -- John Baldwin