From owner-freebsd-hackers Wed Jul 10 10:19:32 1996 Return-Path: owner-hackers Received: (from root@localhost) by freefall.freebsd.org (8.7.5/8.7.3) id KAA27355 for hackers-outgoing; Wed, 10 Jul 1996 10:19:32 -0700 (PDT) Received: from brasil.moneng.mei.com (brasil.moneng.mei.com [151.186.109.160]) by freefall.freebsd.org (8.7.5/8.7.3) with ESMTP id KAA27349 for ; Wed, 10 Jul 1996 10:19:30 -0700 (PDT) Received: (from jgreco@localhost) by brasil.moneng.mei.com (8.7.Beta.1/8.7.Beta.1) id MAA25879; Wed, 10 Jul 1996 12:18:26 -0500 From: Joe Greco Message-Id: <199607101718.MAA25879@brasil.moneng.mei.com> Subject: Re: Some recent changes to GENERIC To: jkh@time.cdrom.com (Jordan K. Hubbard) Date: Wed, 10 Jul 1996 12:18:26 -0500 (CDT) Cc: hackers@FreeBSD.ORG In-Reply-To: <4498.837016588@time.cdrom.com> from "Jordan K. Hubbard" at Jul 10, 96 09:36:28 am X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.4 PL24] Content-Type: text Sender: owner-hackers@FreeBSD.ORG X-Loop: FreeBSD.org Precedence: bulk > > We have no mechanism in -stable to disable devices by default. "COM3" and > > "COM4" aren't 'standard', either. For one thing, the interrupt selections > > for these are often switched. > > Actually, I have to admit that we have - I brought over bruce's > disabled keyword changes this morning and used it to disable the psm0 > driver. However, when I looked at disabling sio3 it was far more > appealing to me to simply remove it since I can't see how anyone would > need more than two serial ports for an installation. Jordan, You're missing it. I can't even think of more than one serial port for an installation - I agree there. However, read my lips: NEWBIES ARE FRIGHTENED BY THE PROSPECT OF RECOMPILING KERNELS AND OTHER GURUISH CRAP. It needs to work cleanly out of the box if we are to have any market appeal. GENERIC probably runs on 80% of all FreeBSD boxes out there, I would bet. Hey, I even run GENERIC on some of my systems. It's convenient. It's flexible. It's the default, too. If you have the support for "disabled" keywords... PLEASE, PLEASE, PLEASE, I BEG YOU, DO IT THAT WAY. You fix the "sio3" problem yet retain the flexibility to have people just "turn it on" with boot -c, without recompiling a kernel and potentially pooping up their system in the process. It is the best of both worlds, and you don't get that often! ... Joe ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Joe Greco - Systems Administrator jgreco@ns.sol.net Solaria Public Access UNIX - Milwaukee, WI 414/546-7968