From owner-freebsd-current Wed Jan 20 16:58:28 1999 Return-Path: Received: (from majordom@localhost) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.8/8.8.8) id QAA13895 for freebsd-current-outgoing; Wed, 20 Jan 1999 16:58:28 -0800 (PST) (envelope-from owner-freebsd-current@FreeBSD.ORG) Received: from nhj.nlc.net.au (nhj.nlc.net.au [203.24.133.1]) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.8/8.8.8) with SMTP id QAA13890 for ; Wed, 20 Jan 1999 16:58:23 -0800 (PST) (envelope-from john.saunders@nlc.net.au) Received: (qmail 15705 invoked by uid 1000); 21 Jan 1999 11:58:13 +1100 From: "John Saunders" Date: Thu, 21 Jan 1999 11:58:13 +1100 (EST) To: Mike Smith cc: freebsd-current@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: Booting -current with new loader In-Reply-To: <199901202027.MAA01089@dingo.cdrom.com> Message-ID: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Sender: owner-freebsd-current@FreeBSD.ORG Precedence: bulk X-Loop: FreeBSD.ORG On Wed, 20 Jan 1999, Mike Smith wrote: > > The option of putting the second drive > > as slave on the primary interface would work, however anybody that knows > > anything about IDE (read somebdy interested in trying FreeBSD) would put > > it on the second interface for speed reasons. > > Er, you want to stop and think about that for a second? If you have > Windows on one disk and FreeBSD on the other, where is the opportiunity > for drive conflicts (the source of performance loss)? In the context of one disk totally Windows and the other totally FreeBSD then yes you are correct. However I have a 1 Gig partition at the end of both disks that I have a CCD mirror on. Read performance won't suffer by moving the drive but write performance halves. Actually I have intended to modify CCD so that is distributes reads over all devices in the mirror, I noticed that it simply hammers the first drive. I'm not sure if core would be interested in such a patch since I think vinum is taking over. That's why I shy away from moving my hardware around. Also I would have to break out the screw driver, when all I need is some finger work. > > I'm not sure about anybody else here, but to my mind a "Winblows on C: > > drive and let's try out FreeBSD on the second disk" configuration should > > really be supported seamlessly. > > You're more than welcome to propose a technical solution that solves > the problem. OK, the technical solution that I propose is an alternative (optional because I want to retain the current semantics) config semantics. controller wdc0 at isa? port "IO_WD1" bio irq 14 flags 0xa0ffa0ff controller wdc1 at isa? port "IO_WD2" bio irq 15 flags 0xa0ffa0ff disk wd? at wdc? This would act identical to the way the SCSI system works by assigning names to disks as they get probed. It would also have the advantage of assigning disk names in the same order as the BIOS (and thereby the boot loader), hence there would be a 1 to 1 mapping between what the boot loader uses and what the FreeBSD kernel detects. I believe the current problem stems from the BIOS (and thereby the boot loader) and the FreeBSD kernel assigning names using a different algorithm and then getting out of step when the kernel skips a name. If anybody knows how to do this quickly then I am happy to help test it. Cheers. -- +------------------------------------------------------------+ . | John Saunders - mailto:john@nlc.net.au (EMail) | ,--_|\ | - http://www.nlc.net.au/ (WWW) | / Oz \ | - 02-9489-4932 or 041-822-3814 (Phone) | \_,--\_/ | NHJ NORTHLINK COMMUNICATIONS - Supplying a professional, | v | and above all friendly, internet connection service. | +------------------------------------------------------------+ To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-current" in the body of the message