From owner-freebsd-hackers Sun Dec 21 20:57:22 1997 Return-Path: Received: (from root@localhost) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.7/8.8.7) id UAA26581 for hackers-outgoing; Sun, 21 Dec 1997 20:57:22 -0800 (PST) (envelope-from owner-freebsd-hackers) Received: from word.smith.net.au (vh1.gsoft.com.au [203.38.152.122]) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.7/8.8.7) with ESMTP id UAA26576 for ; Sun, 21 Dec 1997 20:57:16 -0800 (PST) (envelope-from mike@word.smith.net.au) Received: from word (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by word.smith.net.au (8.8.8/8.8.5) with ESMTP id PAA00692; Mon, 22 Dec 1997 15:21:28 +1030 (CST) Message-Id: <199712220451.PAA00692@word.smith.net.au> X-Mailer: exmh version 2.0zeta 7/24/97 To: John-Mark Gurney cc: Mike Smith , FreeBSD Hackers Subject: Re: converting drivers to dynamic memory... In-reply-to: Your message of "Sat, 20 Dec 1997 23:33:51 -0800." <19971220233351.10621@hydrogen.nike.efn.org> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Date: Mon, 22 Dec 1997 15:21:27 +1030 From: Mike Smith Sender: owner-freebsd-hackers@freebsd.org X-Loop: FreeBSD.org Precedence: bulk > Mike Smith scribbled this message on Dec 21: > > my point was that this "framework" that you said was debunking my changes > ISN'T complete and working, even though you said it was... I will be > needing it in a couple months... To be honest, I made no claim as to its functionality, merely its inevitability. It's hardly reasonable to be making loud accusations of debunkment when you're talking about a hypothetical scheme yourself. > > This is entirely contingent on the acceptance of devfs as "the way to > > go", and the encompassing of the various prerequisite tasks (such as > > persistence and fixing buggy devfs support in drivers). > > so, until that happens, can I procede with phase one (that Darren Reed > was so nice to name :) )... almost ALL of that work will be able to > easily translate once devfs is complete.. What was "phase one"? I'm hardly going to stop you doing something yourself, but you should consider whether the work is worth the effort. > > I think that devfs will be a goer for 3.0. I don't know what sort of > > timetable you're on for your bus restructuring, but I suspect you may > > be looking at 3.1 for that. > > I'm hoping for having the bus/device code completely written and > functional with in the next two months... of course, after the bus/device > code is done, it will require massive changes to the device drivers... I would recommend working on a minimal functional subset of drivers for the new model, such that people can test the framework before you spam it into -current. You should think long and hard about how you can support old-style drivers in the new environment as you suggested, as you'll make some *very* unhappy vendors otherwise. mike