From owner-freebsd-hardware Wed Jun 18 11:28:52 1997 Return-Path: Received: (from root@localhost) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.5/8.8.5) id LAA02058 for hardware-outgoing; Wed, 18 Jun 1997 11:28:52 -0700 (PDT) Received: from sabre.goldsword.com (sabre.goldsword.com [199.170.202.32]) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.5/8.8.5) with ESMTP id LAA01962; Wed, 18 Jun 1997 11:28:09 -0700 (PDT) Received: (from jfarmer@localhost) by sabre.goldsword.com (8.7.5/8.7.3) id NAA07058; Wed, 18 Jun 1997 13:57:56 -0400 (EDT) Date: Wed, 18 Jun 1997 13:57:56 -0400 (EDT) From: "John T. Farmer" Message-Id: <199706181757.NAA07058@sabre.goldsword.com> To: yacoben@FNAL.GOV Subject: Re: Support for Buslogic's Flashpoint LT SCSI card Cc: freebsd-hardware@FreeBSD.ORG, freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG, freebsd-scsi@FreeBSD.ORG, jfarmer@goldsword.com Sender: owner-hardware@FreeBSD.ORG X-Loop: FreeBSD.org Precedence: bulk On Tue, 17 Jun 1997 13:26:00 -0500 (CDT) Kevin Yacoben said: > >Does anyone know the status of any support for the Buslogic's >Flashpoint LT SCSI card??? >I have read all of the past posting and have found little >to indicate that there is any effort in the FreeBSD community to support >these cards. What I did find were suggestions that ranged from upgrading >to a supported card to going out and purchasing new supported hardware!!! >Hmmmmm, is it just me or does this sound a bit like a Microsoft >solution!! Well using that logic I guess I could go out and get an OS that >supports these cards, like Linux, Solarisx86, SCO, OS2 or even (ugggggg) >NT! Kevin, I can't answer your question, but I would like to point out that there are reasons why certain pieces of hardware don't have drivers for them. It's simply the fact that FreeBSD is a _volunteer_ effort. Outside of a _very_ few devices, drivers are created because someone volunteers to write and has the device in question. If a device isn't supported, it's usually because the _volunteers_ who write device drivers either 1) don't have the device in question, 2) someone who has the card can't/won't write one, 3) no one has loaned one to a driver writer, 4) the manufactuer refues to let technical data out unless you're M$ or Sun$oft, or finally 5) nobody has found the time to do it. By the by, the Micro$oft solution would be to get the manufacturer to let M$ have first scoop on information about the device... John (Who would volunteer, but can't find any free time now...) ------------------------------------------------------------------------- John T. Farmer Proprietor, GoldSword Systems jfarmer@goldsword.com Public Internet Access in East Tennessee dial-in (423)470-9953 for info, e-mail to info@goldsword.com Network Design, Internet Services & Servers, Consulting