From owner-freebsd-hackers Wed May 6 21:42:24 1998 Return-Path: Received: (from majordom@localhost) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.8/8.8.8) id VAA10011 for freebsd-hackers-outgoing; Wed, 6 May 1998 21:42:24 -0700 (PDT) (envelope-from owner-freebsd-hackers@FreeBSD.ORG) Received: from antipodes.cdrom.com ([210.145.37.178]) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.8/8.8.8) with ESMTP id VAA09899 for ; Wed, 6 May 1998 21:42:06 -0700 (PDT) (envelope-from mike@antipodes.cdrom.com) Received: from antipodes.cdrom.com (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by antipodes.cdrom.com (8.8.8/8.8.5) with ESMTP id UAA00711; Wed, 6 May 1998 20:36:54 -0700 (PDT) Message-Id: <199805070336.UAA00711@antipodes.cdrom.com> X-Mailer: exmh version 2.0zeta 7/24/97 To: Nate Williams cc: Mike Smith , 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: Your message of "Wed, 06 May 1998 22:22:02 MDT." <199805070422.WAA07997@mt.sri.com> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Date: Wed, 06 May 1998 20:36:53 -0700 From: Mike Smith Sender: owner-freebsd-hackers@FreeBSD.ORG Precedence: bulk X-Loop: FreeBSD.ORG > > > Huh? You're claiming that PnP is the answer to all my problems, and the > > > fact of the matter is that none of the hardware that has these problems > > > have a PnP bios, so it solves nothing. > > > > > > My 560 doesn't have a PnP BIOS, and neither does Warnar's Libretto, nor > > > do any of the ThinkPad's that I have access to, nor the NEC's, nor do > > > the Hitachis. > > > > Ok, now we're getting somewhere. Do you actually know that the systems > > in question don't have PnP BIOS functionality? > > I know that some of them pre-date the PnP specification. Ok. But do all of them? You're dodging the questions here again - I added a whole pile more that you've left unanswered which might have given a better picture of what was going on. They're serious questions; answers would really help. For those that don't have PnP, as I've tried to take considerable pains to point out, you're no worse off than before. You can't help those systems anyway. > > > So, your PnP solution doesn't even begin to solve the problem I'm > > > having. > > > > Ok. But it solves a lot of other peoples' problems. The fact that it > > might not be the magic bullet _you're_ after doesn't alter the fact > > that it's a huge improvement over the current situation. > > But, the solution should be generic enough to solve the existing > problems, so we don't have to break compatability *again* when a > solution is found to fix other problems. You have a better solution? Or are you just objecting to the whole think on religious grounds, in that if the proposed solution isn't perfect then it's not worth accepting in the first place? > > > You're spreading misinformation by stating that the PnP BIOS is the > > > panacea to all of the resource problems, when in fact it only solves a > > > minority of the problems that people are seeing, and in fact we can't > > > even talk to the PnP BIOS so it's not even a workable solution yet. > > > > It's nice to see that a few obscure laptop systems are a "majority" > > As you are well aware, laptop support is more than 'obscure', and is > IMHO one of the largest growing market segments of all hardware sold. > Unfortunately, FreeBSD's support of them *sucks*. And using the facilities that this rapidly growing set of systems provide in order to better support their hardware is somehow making FreeBSD's support of these systems worse? -- \\ Sometimes you're ahead, \\ Mike Smith \\ sometimes you're behind. \\ mike@smith.net.au \\ The race is long, and in the \\ msmith@freebsd.org \\ end it's only with yourself. \\ msmith@cdrom.com To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-hackers" in the body of the message