Date: Tue, 9 May 1995 18:16:50 -0700 (PDT) From: "Rodney W. Grimes" <rgrimes@gndrsh.aac.dev.com> To: terry@cs.weber.edu (Terry Lambert) Cc: brian@MediaCity.Com, freebsd-hackers@FreeBSD.org Subject: Re: A question of downloading device drivers Message-ID: <199505100116.SAA05999@gndrsh.aac.dev.com> In-Reply-To: <9505092225.AA19871@cs.weber.edu> from "Terry Lambert" at May 9, 95 04:25:19 pm
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> > > > include the microcode as a giant static array in the device driver 8-( > > > > Please no, this is what the aic7770 (aha2940 and friends) had to do, but > > then you could not get the file from disk easily if you where booting from > > this type of adapter. > > This was a conscious choice for the AIC7770 support. The POST on the > cards loads a default microcode image that could be used to bootstrap > to the point where the "preferred" microcode could be read from the > file system (or preferably, a VM86() mode would be used to obtain > compatibility for all controllers, not just AIC7770's running default > microcode). > > A proof, I offer the fact the the darn things boot and run DOS without > any special software being necessary. I know, I know, you can quit telling us about doing VM86 and BIOS disk drivers. > > > > down load the microcode via an set of ioctls. > > > > This has been the historical BSD method of doing it. Look on the > > 4.4BSD Lite code, there are some programs there to set up the > > Excelan EXOS 105 network cards that need to have software down > > loaded to them. > > I think you mean the EXOS 205T boards. Down loading via ioctl() > sucks (I know; I happen to be doing it for LKM). The EXOS 205T is an IBM/PC board, the EXOS board I am referring to is a Unibus board. And I was wrong, it is the Interlan board, not the Excelan board :-). > > Really, it should be done with kernel level vnode I/O, just like the > UFS disk quotas. The same is true for any driver on the machine > that's not needed for actually booting the machine to the point where > it could load more code from disk. Hummmm, yea, perhaps that is a nicer solution. I was just sitting precedence on how it has been done in the past. -- Rod Grimes rgrimes@gndrsh.aac.dev.com Accurate Automation Company Custom computers for FreeBSD
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