Date: Sat, 11 Oct 1997 15:08:29 -0500 From: dkelly@hiwaay.net To: FreeBSD Chat <chat@freebsd.org> Subject: Re: Linux vs freeBSD Message-ID: <199710112008.PAA02585@nospam.hiwaay.net> In-Reply-To: Message from Mike Smith <mike@smith.net.au> of "Sat, 11 Oct 1997 19:19:02 %2B0930." <199710110949.TAA01174@word.smith.net.au>
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Mike Smith replies: > > > (David Kelly) > > > Do we have any examples laying around of FreeBSD wanting for drivers > > > that exist in Linux? Or are we simply repeating what's always been said? > > There are a few that come to mind; the Buslogic Flashpoint controllers, > Token Ring cards, some Xircom hardware I believe. I'll note that Linux has AX.25 (amateur packet radio) networking in the kernel, and FreeBSD doesn't. Are there any FreeBSD has that Linux lacks? > > > An example would be ATAPI CDROM's and FreeBSD. In the past FreeBSD's > > > ATAPI support was slack. The reason I gathered was that nobody who was > > > capable of the task wanted to do it. > > It's always better to ask about these things. The ATAPI support was > slack because the people who demanded it were unwilling to do the work, > and the people that were willing and capable didn't have the time or > resources. That's mostly not an issue these days. I think Mike restated exactly what I said. If someone wants to do something then they will make time. Taking it from another task, paying job, family, sleep. My original language was too brief. I don't track -current, don't subscribe to all the FreeBSD lists. Haven't had the time. But recently some things have come up that I'd like to enhance, so its time to make time. First, buy another HD... > > > Today, I don't know what the status is of the wd driver. But I'd guess > > > that its not being carressed into DMA, UltraDMA, mode 4.... the way a > > > Linux driver would be. As with ATAPI, its just not as interesting to > > > FreeBSD developers as SCSI. > > That is, of course, complete crap, as anyone that's been following this > would be able to observe: Did somebody get out of the wrong side of the bed this morning? I don't mean to sound as if I'm putting down the IDE/wd developer(s), as I'm not. It works for me. I never think about it if its not crashing. That's the way I like it. Thank-you, whoever you are. I'm wrong for saying, "I'd guess that its not being carressed..." but it took several readings of that sentence to see the error as I saw the emphasis on "...the way a Linux driver would be." and didn't mean to infer these features didn't or wouldn't exist. This relates to the stability issue: I have seen 3 Linuxen at a table in a computer flea market, each holding a different Linux distribution, reading aloud to each other the features/versions of each, attempting to decide which was the newest and most featured, and therefore the best one to buy. In that market failure to mention UDMA33 would be fatal. And that was the image I had in mind when I wrote that sentence. > > > In the driver discussion, some mention of the sharing of drivers > > > between FreeBSD and Linux is needed. > > This is hard. I guess you can cover the fact that FreeBSD has on some > occasions been able to leverage the information obtained by Linux > developers in order to create and/or improve drivers, but the Linux > driver model and typical source code license is such that it's hard to > "share" drivers. Was thinking of Linux using FreeBSD drivers, or drivers that FreeBSD also uses. Adaptec 2940 and DEC Tulip 2x14x have been mentioned in this context before. There was also a case where the author agreed to remove GPL from the FreeBSD banch of his code, wasn't there? -- David Kelly N4HHE, dkelly@hiwaay.net ===================================================================== The human mind ordinarily operates at only ten percent of its capacity -- the rest is overhead for the operating system.
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