From owner-freebsd-hackers Wed May 6 21:02:20 1998 Return-Path: Received: (from majordom@localhost) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.8/8.8.8) id VAA01712 for freebsd-hackers-outgoing; Wed, 6 May 1998 21:02:20 -0700 (PDT) (envelope-from owner-freebsd-hackers@FreeBSD.ORG) Received: from ns.mt.sri.com (sri-gw.MT.net [206.127.105.141]) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.8/8.8.8) with ESMTP id VAA01694 for ; Wed, 6 May 1998 21:02:09 -0700 (PDT) (envelope-from nate@mt.sri.com) Received: from mt.sri.com (rocky.mt.sri.com [206.127.76.100]) by ns.mt.sri.com (8.8.8/8.8.8) with SMTP id WAA27263; Wed, 6 May 1998 22:01:37 -0600 (MDT) (envelope-from nate@rocky.mt.sri.com) Received: by mt.sri.com (SMI-8.6/SMI-SVR4) id WAA07914; Wed, 6 May 1998 22:01:32 -0600 Date: Wed, 6 May 1998 22:01:32 -0600 Message-Id: <199805070401.WAA07914@mt.sri.com> From: Nate Williams MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit To: Mike Smith Cc: Nate Williams , Amancio Hasty , Archie Cobbs , stefan@promo.de (Stefan Bethke), luigi@labinfo.iet.unipi.it, freebsd-hackers@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: ISA-PnP w\o BIOS support? In-Reply-To: <199805070251.TAA00511@antipodes.cdrom.com> References: <199805070340.VAA07786@mt.sri.com> <199805070251.TAA00511@antipodes.cdrom.com> X-Mailer: VM 6.29 under 19.15 XEmacs Lucid Sender: owner-freebsd-hackers@FreeBSD.ORG Precedence: bulk X-Loop: FreeBSD.ORG > > Sysctl variables can't be set by the user. > > Sorry? How are they set, then? Before the system has ever been booted, they can set them? How? > > No it can't, since many of these boxes are not PnP boxes. > > I'm sorry, I have just said "the information can either come from PnP > or a configuration file". And where does this file come from? This is a boot floppy, or something similar to it? > > The PnP BIOS is *NOT* authoratative since it doesn't exist on all the > > hardware the functionality is needed. > > I'm sorry, but on a system where a PnP BIOS exists... You're not getting it. The PnP BIOS is *NOT* authoritative since it doesn't exist. It can't be since it doesn't exist. It doesn't exist. IT DOESN'T EXIST. No PnP BIOS. Not there, not gonna be there, never was there, no plans on it ever being there. > It is most needed It's not there. It's not going to be there, we can't make manufacturers put it there, we can't rely on it being there, so for all intents and purposes it's *NOT THERE*. > Where the PnP BIOS is able to supply resource information, it should be > used. I can't understand why you wouldn't want to do this. I never said we couldn't use it *WHEN IT'S THERE*, but if you go back and read the very first statement I made (which I'll repeat here), I'll explain the problem. I said: > Things is, this [ the proposed solution ] falls really short for > non-ISA/non-PnP devices Again, no PnP BIOS. Not gonna be there. > Not at all. You haven't at any point done anything other than say > "there are systems without PnP BIOS support". Yep, and the proposed solution where resources cannot be adequately assigned correctly doesn't even begin to address that problem. As long as we're solving a problem, solve if for *everyone* who has a problem, not a small subset of the systems. Nate To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-hackers" in the body of the message