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Date: Wed, 7 May 1997 05:21:27 -0500
From: Tim Tsai <tim@futuresouth.com>
To: Jason Thorpe <thorpej@nas.nasa.gov>
Cc: Jaye Mathisen <mrcpu@cdsnet.net>, dennis <dennis@etinc.com>,
        Tim Tsai <tim@futuresouth.com>, hackers@freebsd.org
Subject: Re: if_de.c ????
References: <199705062111.OAA21194@lestat.nas.nasa.gov>
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In-Reply-To: <199705062111.OAA21194@lestat.nas.nasa.gov>; from Jason Thorpe on Tue, May 06, 1997 at 02:11:51PM -0700
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On Tue, May 06, 1997 at 02:11:51PM -0700, Jason Thorpe wrote:
> I don't understand the issue people have with this... So, you have to
> run a more up-to-date version of the OS to deal with a certain set of
> cards (although I haven't seen the most recent "de" code go into FreeBSD
> yet...)

  Jason, myself and I am sure many others don't have any trouble upgrading
a new kernel to support new hardware.  I think the problem, at least from
my perspective, is that there's certain amount of uncertainty of having
to take code from another operating system (I realize NetBSD is very
similar to FreeBSD, but they differ enough to cause problems at the kernel
level) and incorporating it into FreeBSD.  If you recall, your own chio
code wasn't incorporated into the kernel until very recently.  We've taken
the similar path with chio as we did de and ultimately it just wasn't
practical to track the corresponding NetBSD changes because the FreeBSD
kernel changes enough on each release to break the NetBSD code.

  I should point out that as of today, there still isn't an "up-to-date"
FreeBSD kernel that supports the 21140-AC de cards.  Even the NetBSD
support for it has been shoddy until about a month or so ago.

  Tim