From owner-freebsd-alpha Tue Jan 6 12:49:15 1998 Return-Path: Received: (from majordom@localhost) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.7/8.8.7) id MAA19559 for alpha-outgoing; Tue, 6 Jan 1998 12:49:15 -0800 (PST) (envelope-from owner-freebsd-alpha@FreeBSD.ORG) Received: from hydrogen.nike.efn.org (d182-89.uoregon.edu [128.223.182.89]) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.7/8.8.7) with ESMTP id MAA19534 for ; Tue, 6 Jan 1998 12:48:46 -0800 (PST) (envelope-from gurney_j@efn.org) Received: (from jmg@localhost) by hydrogen.nike.efn.org (8.8.7/8.8.7) id MAA08087; Tue, 6 Jan 1998 12:48:23 -0800 (PST) Message-ID: <19980106124822.38411@hydrogen.nike.efn.org> Date: Tue, 6 Jan 1998 12:48:22 -0800 From: John-Mark Gurney To: John Birrell Cc: "Jordan K. Hubbard" , jim.king@mail.sstar.com, freebsd-alpha@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: Alpha port.. References: <707.884107542@time.cdrom.com> <199801062023.HAA09855@freebsd1.cimlogic.com.au> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii X-Mailer: Mutt 0.69 In-Reply-To: <199801062023.HAA09855@freebsd1.cimlogic.com.au>; from John Birrell on Wed, Jan 07, 1998 at 07:23:13AM +1100 Reply-To: John-Mark Gurney Organization: Cu Networking X-Operating-System: FreeBSD 2.2.1-RELEASE i386 X-PGP-Fingerprint: B7 EC EF F8 AE ED A7 31 96 7A 22 B3 D8 56 36 F4 X-Files: The truth is out there X-URL: http://resnet.uoregon.edu/~gurney_j/ Sender: owner-freebsd-alpha@FreeBSD.ORG Precedence: bulk X-Loop: FreeBSD.org John Birrell scribbled this message on Jan 7: > Another thing that needs some effort IMHO, is keeping the device driver > interface consistent between the BSD variants so that anyone can pick up > a driver from one and use it on another. I'd like to see someone write > a design document that defines exactly what the device driver interface > is. And I don't mean example code, but something you could test for > compliance against. And if you're being adventurous, try including the > NetBSD design in there too. But I guess that is not the sort of thing > that hackers want to do. 8-( guess you need to read my busdevice spec... oh, I've moved locations and now it will be MUCH faster to pull... http://d182-89.uoregon.edu/~jmg/FreeBSD/busdevice.html Please read and send comments about it... I've started to expand the document on more than just the structures that it contains... personally, NetBSD started in the right direction with their bus_space code, but they never completed the project... I'm actually going to use their bus_space code without modifications (if it goes well)... but the rest of their bus code is to limiting... this will make porting existing netbsd drivers easier.. I did port netbsd's strip driver (for Metricom modems) in a few hours.. it was more problems changing the if.if_xname to our broken down version of if.if_name and if.if_unit.. also, I've noticed that nexus seems to be used a bunch in the unix world to talk about the processor bus (I know that SunOS uses it, and I think it's mentioned in BSD's config)... so is this an ideal name for the processor bus? I've been trying to think of one, but I haven't come up with one yet... thanks for the suggestions... ttyl.. -- John-Mark Gurney Modem/FAX: +1 541 683 6954 Cu Networking P.O. Box 5693, 97405 Live in Peace, destroy Micro$oft, support free software, run FreeBSD