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From: Terry Lambert <tlambert@primenet.com>
Message-Id: <200012062036.NAA21965@usr08.primenet.com>
Subject: Re: Lynx test / 2nd attempt
To: msmith@FreeBSD.ORG (Mike Smith)
Date: Wed, 6 Dec 2000 20:36:47 +0000 (GMT)
Cc: freebsd-alpha@FreeBSD.ORG
In-Reply-To: <200012062030.eB6KU0F52113@mass.osd.bsdi.com> from "Mike Smith" at Dec 06, 2000 12:30:00 PM
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> > Please find attached the transcript of the boot of yesterdays
> > Lynx boot floppy. Unfortunately the system still hangs after 
> > the probing PnP devices message. Isn't PnP on Alpha a no-no
> > anyway?
> 
> ISA PnP should work just fine.  Nobody's pointed out to me how we could 
> obtain the other resource information from SRM, so I haven't made any 
> attempt to emulate the BIOS PnP functionality the x86 has (but I would 
> very much like to, and I know the information is available somewhere).

Is FreeBSD being "a PnP OS" an alpha need?

The Shanley/MindShare PnP book documents what an OS needs to do
to be a "PnP OS".  The one problem is that the POST code on most
cards assumes POSTing by an x86 processor running ROMed x86 code
from the card itself.  This normally leads vendors of non-x86
machines to support a limited set of hardware, and do the POST
initialization of the card in their own ROM or firmware code.

If the card's default POST state didn't require the CPU to do
processing when the card was installed with PnP mode enable,
then doing the "PnP OS" thing would work; otherwise, it probably
won't.  This means that ISA PnP will probably be broken on these
boxes as well.  Carrying around the non-x86 equivalent for all
possible cards that were designed by people who can't get their
hardware into a functional state by default without the help of
x86 code is really not an option.


					Terry Lambert
					terry@lambert.org
---
Any opinions in this posting are my own and not those of my present
or previous employers.


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