From owner-freebsd-current@FreeBSD.ORG Wed Mar 29 09:28:57 2006 Return-Path: X-Original-To: freebsd-current@freebsd.org Delivered-To: freebsd-current@freebsd.org Received: from mx1.FreeBSD.org (mx1.freebsd.org [216.136.204.125]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id D7E4A16A400 for ; Wed, 29 Mar 2006 09:28:57 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from scottl@samsco.org) Received: from pooker.samsco.org (pooker.samsco.org [168.103.85.57]) by mx1.FreeBSD.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 377EB43D46 for ; Wed, 29 Mar 2006 09:28:57 +0000 (GMT) (envelope-from scottl@samsco.org) Received: from [192.168.254.14] (imini.samsco.home [192.168.254.14]) (authenticated bits=0) by pooker.samsco.org (8.13.4/8.13.4) with ESMTP id k2T9SqK2098404; Wed, 29 Mar 2006 02:28:53 -0700 (MST) (envelope-from scottl@samsco.org) Message-ID: <442A5354.4020108@samsco.org> Date: Wed, 29 Mar 2006 02:28:52 -0700 From: Scott Long User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Macintosh; U; PPC Mac OS X Mach-O; en-US; rv:1.7.7) Gecko/20050416 X-Accept-Language: en-us, en MIME-Version: 1.0 To: "Conrad J. Sabatier" References: <20060329020527.f8f087a4.conrads@cox.net> In-Reply-To: <20060329020527.f8f087a4.conrads@cox.net> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii; format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Spam-Status: No, score=-1.4 required=3.8 tests=ALL_TRUSTED autolearn=failed version=3.1.0 X-Spam-Checker-Version: SpamAssassin 3.1.0 (2005-09-13) on pooker.samsco.org Cc: freebsd-current@freebsd.org Subject: Re: device atpic to be deprecated? X-BeenThere: freebsd-current@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.5 Precedence: list List-Id: Discussions about the use of FreeBSD-current List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Wed, 29 Mar 2006 09:28:57 -0000 Conrad J. Sabatier wrote: > While searching the mailing lists recently on an unrelated subject, I happened across a message mentioning the intended removal of "device atpic" in 7.0. So, I tried building a kernel without it on my RELENG_6 amd64 box (nVidia nForce 3 chipset) and discovered that it was unable to mount the root slice. > > Naturally, I'm a little concerned about this. :-) > > Is the plan still in effect to abolish this device? > There might have been hope at one time that amd64 would not need it. I beleive that that ioapic is part of the amd64 system spec that motherboard/chipset makers must implement. However, engineering inertia is hard to overcome, and it's likely that this is just a fantasy. For i386, it simply has no chance of ever going away. My guess is that it'll take a next generation platform to completely do away with ISA, ATPIC, and other legacy components. Hmmm.... maybe that next-gen platform is the MacIntel? Scott