From owner-freebsd-ppc@FreeBSD.ORG Tue Oct 14 21:47:08 2003 Return-Path: Delivered-To: freebsd-ppc@freebsd.org Received: from mx1.FreeBSD.org (mx1.freebsd.org [216.136.204.125]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 993AC16A4B3; Tue, 14 Oct 2003 21:47:08 -0700 (PDT) Received: from blarf.homeip.net (adsl-209-204-188-56.sonic.net [209.204.188.56]) by mx1.FreeBSD.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 817BC43FE3; Tue, 14 Oct 2003 21:47:07 -0700 (PDT) (envelope-from listmail@blarf.homeip.net) Received: by blarf.homeip.net (Postfix, from userid 2001) id D56BE2464C; Tue, 14 Oct 2003 21:47:06 -0700 (PDT) Date: Tue, 14 Oct 2003 21:47:06 -0700 From: Alex Zepeda To: Peter Grehan , freebsd-ppc@freebsd.org Message-ID: <20031015044706.GA787@blarf.homeip.net> References: <3F8CAFAE.6260CFCF@freebsd.org> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Disposition: inline In-Reply-To: <3F8CAFAE.6260CFCF@freebsd.org> User-Agent: Mutt/1.4.1i Sender: zipzippy@sonic.net Subject: Re: FYI: rudimentary loader for ppcbug-based systems X-BeenThere: freebsd-ppc@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.1 Precedence: list List-Id: Porting FreeBSD to the PowerPC List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Wed, 15 Oct 2003 04:47:08 -0000 On Wed, Oct 15, 2003 at 12:23:42PM +1000, Peter Grehan wrote: > Clean interfaces would be the best. The ultimate is a single kernel that could > run on all combinations of processor and firmware, the true GENERIC, but I'm not > sure if that's possible. I think this is the wrong way to go. IMO, NetBSD has the right idea. Treat each PPC platform as a truely independent platform. They've got sys/arch/powerpc for the truly generic stuff. This allows them to support stuff like the BeBox, MacPPC, various IBM boxen, etc. This would be, IMO, similar to how FreeBSD handles the pc98 case... and the current powerpc stuff would be split up into MI (sys/powerpc) and MD (sys/powermac or sys/macppc maybe) portions. Darwin, and perhaps LinuxPPC, apparently handles the device enumeration and such without openfirware (actually BootX more or less renders any OF stubs unuseable). This is perhaps a nice goal, but IMO, it would be better to at least get everything working *with* OFW. This is of course easier with the new-world machines which have reasonable versions of OF. - alex