Date: Wed, 6 Dec 2000 20:36:47 +0000 (GMT) From: Terry Lambert <tlambert@primenet.com> To: msmith@FreeBSD.ORG (Mike Smith) Cc: freebsd-alpha@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: Lynx test / 2nd attempt Message-ID: <200012062036.NAA21965@usr08.primenet.com> 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. To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-alpha" in the body of the message
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