Date: Sat, 5 Dec 1998 22:16:44 +0000 (GMT) From: Terry Lambert <tlambert@primenet.com> To: wpaul@skynet.ctr.columbia.edu (Bill Paul) Cc: current@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: New drivers and install floppy space Message-ID: <199812052216.PAA28951@usr05.primenet.com> In-Reply-To: <199812050528.AAA13608@skynet.ctr.columbia.edu> from "Bill Paul" at Dec 5, 98 00:28:05 am
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> > The alternative will be to have a single minimal kernel and mfsroot > > floppy, and another floppy with a pile of KLD modules on it. This > > won't be feasible until the PCI code moves to the new bus architecture > > (soon we hope). > > I would like to see this too, but I would also like to see the > ability to provide 3rd party drivers during the install. [ ... ] > This would allow hardware vendors to provide drivers that can > be loaded and used during installation of FreeBSD, and it would > make it easier for users to load FreeBSD using newly written > drivers (that is, written by us) without having to wait for the > next release or build a custom installation floppy. This is the partial culmination of the benefits of a modular kernel. I would suggest that architectural care be given to allowing: o use of DOS format floppies to conatin the driver o specification of the FS path to the driver directory o selection of a default "/freebsd/" directory o a naming format that can return all drivers, but avoid other (informational, etc.) files, such as loading everything matching "*.[0-9][0-9][0-9]" in the driver directory o support for using drivers from multiple floppies, one per device o a mechanism for dumping drivers from the kernel after installation so that they need not be installed twice: once to boot, once to install; this probably implies driver data areas be mapped copy-on-write to maintain the data image integrity to allow it to be written back out This would allow the FreeBSD project to provide binary drivers back to vendors for inclusion on their distribution media, and in general, help raise FreeBSD visibility considerably. Terry Lambert terry@lambert.org --- Any opinions in this posting are my own and not those of my present or previous employers. To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-current" in the body of the message
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