From owner-freebsd-arch@FreeBSD.ORG Sat Feb 3 20:13:18 2007 Return-Path: X-Original-To: freebsd-arch@freebsd.org Delivered-To: freebsd-arch@freebsd.org Received: from mx1.freebsd.org (mx1.freebsd.org [69.147.83.52]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id C137516A401 for ; Sat, 3 Feb 2007 20:13:18 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from jmg@hydrogen.funkthat.com) Received: from hydrogen.funkthat.com (gate.funkthat.com [69.17.45.168]) by mx1.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 98E0613C428 for ; Sat, 3 Feb 2007 20:13:18 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from jmg@hydrogen.funkthat.com) Received: from hydrogen.funkthat.com (jj1llm1e7h2dmap2@localhost.funkthat.com [127.0.0.1]) by hydrogen.funkthat.com (8.13.6/8.13.3) with ESMTP id l13Jw0h4097674; Sat, 3 Feb 2007 11:58:00 -0800 (PST) (envelope-from jmg@hydrogen.funkthat.com) Received: (from jmg@localhost) by hydrogen.funkthat.com (8.13.6/8.13.3/Submit) id l13JvxdS097667; Sat, 3 Feb 2007 11:57:59 -0800 (PST) (envelope-from jmg) Date: Sat, 3 Feb 2007 11:57:59 -0800 From: John-Mark Gurney To: "M. Warner Losh" Message-ID: <20070203195759.GG779@funkthat.com> Mail-Followup-To: "M. Warner Losh" , rizzo@icir.org, freebsd-arch@freebsd.org References: <20070131115148.A60420@xorpc.icir.org> <200702011109.12821.jhb@freebsd.org> <20070201091605.A82313@xorpc.icir.org> <20070201.110206.1102529050.imp@bsdimp.com> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Disposition: inline In-Reply-To: <20070201.110206.1102529050.imp@bsdimp.com> User-Agent: Mutt/1.4.2.1i X-Operating-System: FreeBSD 5.4-RELEASE-p6 i386 X-PGP-Fingerprint: B7 EC EF F8 AE ED A7 31 96 7A 22 B3 D8 56 36 F4 X-Files: The truth is out there X-URL: http://resnet.uoregon.edu/~gurney_j/ X-Resume: http://resnet.uoregon.edu/~gurney_j/resume.html Cc: freebsd-arch@freebsd.org Subject: Re: configurable device (and other) tables in the kernel ? X-BeenThere: freebsd-arch@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.5 Precedence: list Reply-To: John-Mark Gurney List-Id: Discussion related to FreeBSD architecture List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Sat, 03 Feb 2007 20:13:18 -0000 Warner Losh wrote this message on Thu, Feb 01, 2007 at 11:02 -0700: > On the one hand, I like the flexibility of having the ability to look > at a device and know what driver(s) may attach to it w/o having the > drivers in memory, since that allows us to move to a demand load > model for those people that want it. Right now, there's no way to > smartly extract the plug and play info used by the device probe > routines to bid on a device from the drivers to try to smartly load, > say, the atheros driver when an atheros cardbus card is inserted. Hmmm.. couldn't we do something like dedicate a section to a simple table that contains the PCI id's and related data to match.. Then we could have a tool that embeds the PCI id data from a plain text file and recreates the plain text file from the section... This doesn't solve the cases where the driver needs to handle a device specially, but w/ the text file, and the driver using the table, it'd be easy to do an on demand load pass... (and for new devices, users would be able to test drivers w/o having to recompile the module).. And as part of installation, it lists the modules that are necessary to boot in loader.conf... Just a thought... -- John-Mark Gurney Voice: +1 415 225 5579 "All that I will do, has been done, All that I have, has not."