From owner-freebsd-alpha Wed Oct 14 13:47:04 1998 Return-Path: Received: (from majordom@localhost) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.8/8.8.8) id NAA23122 for freebsd-alpha-outgoing; Wed, 14 Oct 1998 13:47:04 -0700 (PDT) (envelope-from owner-freebsd-alpha@FreeBSD.ORG) Received: from nlsystems.com (nlsys.demon.co.uk [158.152.125.33]) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.8/8.8.8) with ESMTP id NAA23115 for ; Wed, 14 Oct 1998 13:47:01 -0700 (PDT) (envelope-from dfr@nlsystems.com) Received: from herring.nlsystems.com (herring.nlsystems.com [10.0.0.2]) by nlsystems.com (8.9.1/8.8.5) with SMTP id VAA03585; Wed, 14 Oct 1998 21:44:52 +0100 (BST) Date: Wed, 14 Oct 1998 21:44:52 +0100 (BST) From: Doug Rabson To: Robert Huff cc: alpha@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: PALcode In-Reply-To: <199810140141.VAA11124@shell1.cybercom.net> Message-ID: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Sender: owner-freebsd-alpha@FreeBSD.ORG Precedence: bulk X-Loop: FreeBSD.org On Tue, 13 Oct 1998, Robert Huff wrote: > > > Terry Lambert writes: > > > CGD's point about this maybe not being important really stands or > > falls based on what hardware is going to be commonly available, > > and what PLA code comes loaded. > > As someone whose only stake is as a (very) interested potential > customer ... I would accept - in fact, would prefer - moderate > limitations on the hardware base if it means better internal > dynamics (and by extension less grief in developing the initial and > subsequent kernels, etc.). I have no intention of using the NT/ARC palcode since it imposes unacceptable limitations (32bit address space, sicko NT process semantics etc). The palcode is not the same as the firmware though. We may use the ARC/AlphaBIOS firmware to load the kernel in the future and then switch from ARC palcode to our own palcode (which will be very similar to OSF palcode), probably derived from the MILO palcode (not GPL as far as I know). Does anyone know what proportion of alpha boxes sold run Linux/*BSD instead of NT? It might be worthwhile for Compaq to put a copy of the OSF palcode into the AlphaBIOS firmware to make life easier for Linux/*BSD. Wait a second - that makes too much sense :-(. -- Doug Rabson Mail: dfr@nlsystems.com Nonlinear Systems Ltd. Phone: +44 181 951 1891 Fax: +44 181 381 1039 To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-alpha" in the body of the message