From owner-freebsd-current@FreeBSD.ORG Mon May 5 07:43:43 2003 Return-Path: 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 13FF337B401 for ; Mon, 5 May 2003 07:43:43 -0700 (PDT) Received: from cain.gsoft.com.au (genesi.lnk.telstra.net [139.130.136.161]) by mx1.FreeBSD.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id A0D0C43FBF for ; Mon, 5 May 2003 07:43:40 -0700 (PDT) (envelope-from doconnor@gsoft.com.au) Received: from localhost (metatron.gsoft.com.au [203.38.152.122]) by cain.gsoft.com.au (8.12.9/8.12.6) with ESMTP id h45EhTIW011032; Tue, 6 May 2003 00:13:32 +0930 (CST) (envelope-from doconnor@gsoft.com.au) From: "Daniel O'Connor" To: Terry Lambert Date: Mon, 5 May 2003 16:43:24 +0200 User-Agent: KMail/1.5 References: <20030504020700.B3CCA37B401@hub.freebsd.org> <200305051222.05046.doconnor@gsoft.com.au> <3EB6746F.E7E3616C@mindspring.com> In-Reply-To: <3EB6746F.E7E3616C@mindspring.com> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Content-Disposition: inline Message-Id: <200305051643.24310.doconnor@gsoft.com.au> X-Spam-Score: -1.5 () CARRIAGE_RETURNS,IN_REP_TO,QUOTED_EMAIL_TEXT,REFERENCES,SPAM_PHRASE_00_01,USER_AGENT X-Scanned-By: MIMEDefang 2.16 (www . roaringpenguin . com / mimedefang) cc: freebsd-current@freebsd.org cc: kientzle@acm.org Subject: Re: Floppy Support X-BeenThere: freebsd-current@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.1 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: Mon, 05 May 2003 14:43:43 -0000 On Mon, 5 May 2003 16:25, Terry Lambert wrote: > Daniel O'Connor wrote: > > Or use modules.. > > The vast majority of drivers are loadable as modules. It would be > > feasible to standardise the PCI ID tables of drivers and then generate a > > list from it which you can use to load modules for cards you find. > > ...loading them from some media for which the BIOS is capable > of causing the loader to pre-load it using BIOS calls, or for > which the kernel can load it only if there is a driver for > that media statically compiled into the kernel, or for which a > driver has been loaded via BIOS calls by the loader before the > kernel is started. > > Q: I have a CDROM on controller XXX, how do I install? > > A: Load the driver for controller XXX from the CDROM. > > Q: If I could access the CDROM without the !@#!$*! driver, > I wouldn't need to *LOAD* the driver! > > A: Oh. > > > Still a "catch-22". I am generally assuming access to another PC here. I understand what you are saying, and yes it would be good if the loader could use the BIOS to load drivers it determined you had hardware for or wished to load, but I think that is a non-trivial amount of work. If the loader groked cd9660 already it would be a lot easier. -- Daniel O'Connor software and network engineer for Genesis Software - http://www.gsoft.com.au "The nice thing about standards is that there are so many of them to choose from." -- Andrew Tanenbaum GPG Fingerprint - 9A8C 569F 685A D928 5140 AE4B 319B 41F4 5D17 FDD5