Date: Sun, 11 Apr 1999 18:19:16 -0600 From: Wes Peters <wes@softweyr.com> To: Joachim Isaksson <Joachim.Isaksson@ibfs.com> Cc: hackers@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: IrDA? PnP? Message-ID: <37113C04.66E6D463@softweyr.com> References: <000a01be842b$eeff6e10$f56d17c2@home.ibfs.com>
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Joachim Isaksson wrote:
>
> I started, just for fun, to look at implementing some IrDA functionality
> under FreeBSD and ended up with a few question marks regarding
> implementation (they're all sort of interconnected) Some are probably
> answered before, but the mailing list search on FreeBSD.org doesn't seem to
> be working today :-(
>
> 1) Is anyone already working on IrDA support?
I've been toying with IrLAN support a little bit. Linux 2.2 has some limited
support for this, so I'll be looking at what they've done for pointers on
strategy and documentation.
> If so, I'd be happy to assist time permitting. I have a lot of catching up
> to do on device driver writing under FreeBSD though, so can't guarantee any
> instant results. (anyone got a good book to recommend btw?) I've only
> written a couple of very simple device drivers for the initial VAX port of
> NetBSD, and that was quite a while ago. :)
I'm not exactly a device driver maven either, but I've done a lot of device
and network level work on other systems. My biggest problem is time, but
that is becoming less of a problem now, for the next few months.
> 2) If noone has already started it, how should IrDA be implemented?
> I started off thinking of IrDA as a bus, but then I saw something about
> Linux implementing it as a network protocol(?) Still it would to me make
> sense to implement it as a bus (a'la USB?) with PnP devices, but I'd rather
> have input on this before doing something terribly silly :)
Actually, it's a whole bunch of semi-related protocols. Support for Ir
printers would be nice, but I'm mostly interested in using it as a network
link for laptops initially. Sure, 4mbps isn't screaming fast, but it's
entirely acceptable for email and web surfing, where your ultimate desitnation
is a shared T1 (or less) to the internet.
> 3) I've been trying to understand the PnP functionality of FreeBSD, but so
> far I've failed miserably. Is there any good documentation on the subject
> besides the source code?
>
> 4) As I (so far) understand it, the PnP functionality is a special "hack"
> for the ISA bus right now and could not easily be extended to integrate PnP
> devices on the IrDA bus? Is this assumption correct? If so, is anyone
> working on extending PnP device management so that, for example, the kernel
> (or more likely a process communicating with the kernel) could dynamically
> load driver kernel objects if the device was plugged in? I can see that this
> would be very useful for PCMCIA use too, as well as USB, IrDA and ISA/PCI
> hotplug solutions.
And CardBus, while we're cleaning up the world.
> 5) Is there any reason (besides the probably rather major work it would
> mean) not to move most if not all FreeBSD drivers to dynamically loadable
> modules? It would sure be easier for the "common man" to add device drivers,
> and it would make things like PnP much easier to implement in a dynamic way.
>
> Well, that sort of sums up my questions for now, hope you're all having a
> good weekend!
Quite good so far. One birthday party and now off to buy a car. Not much
time for hacking, though. ;^)
--
"Where am I, and what am I doing in this handbasket?"
Wes Peters Softweyr LLC
http://www.softweyr.com/~softweyr wes@softweyr.com
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