Date: Mon, 24 Apr 2000 08:44:49 -0700 From: Julian Elischer <julian@elischer.org> To: Garrett Wollman <wollman@khavrinen.lcs.mit.edu> Cc: Bruce Evans <bde@zeta.org.au>, current@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: asm_pci.h,v Holy cow! Message-ID: <39046BF1.1CFBAE39@elischer.org> References: <39041698.15FB7483@elischer.org> <Pine.BSF.4.21.0004242117060.4200-100000@alphplex.bde.org> <200004241536.LAA33905@khavrinen.lcs.mit.edu>
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Garrett Wollman wrote:
>
> <<On Mon, 24 Apr 2000 21:30:01 +1000 (EST), Bruce Evans <bde@zeta.org.au> said:
>
> > This seems to be inherent in the file format. Binary data is expanded
> > by a factor of 4 due to encoding it as a C array. Even tiny changes
> > in the data ripple through the array and give huge diffs. Uuencoding
> > the data would only expand it by a factor of 1.4 although it would
> > have the same problem with the diffs.
>
> I've been thinking about this recently myself. We want to maintain
> the ability to examine historical versions of the code, but actual
> diffs from one version to another are, in this context, meaningless.
>
> I'd like to suggest a new hierarchy /usr/firmware, which sits
> along-side /usr/src and /usr/ports in our distribution mechanism, but
> which does not use RCS files to store version information. Rather,
> the version information is encoded in the pathname, and files are
> stored and transferred as binary objects. It might look something
> like this:
>
> /usr/firmware/
> gronk/ (this is the gronk driver)
> 3.57.OA.bin (where 3.57.OA is vendor's version)
> plugh/
> 42.69/
> model1.bin
> model2.bin
> model3.bin
>
> -GAWollman
This seems well thought out and I certainly agree that we don't need
DIFFs of firmware.
I wonder if we can somehow "cheat time" and get that 13MB file out of
the source tree and retro-actively tag the new scheme so
that we don't have to carry it around forever :-)
--
__--_|\ Julian Elischer
/ \ julian@elischer.org
( OZ ) World tour 2000
---> X_.---._/ presently in: Perth
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