Date: Tue, 14 Oct 2003 21:47:06 -0700 From: Alex Zepeda <zipzippy@sonic.net> To: Peter Grehan <grehan@freebsd.org>, freebsd-ppc@freebsd.org Subject: Re: FYI: rudimentary loader for ppcbug-based systems Message-ID: <20031015044706.GA787@blarf.homeip.net> In-Reply-To: <3F8CAFAE.6260CFCF@freebsd.org> References: <E087F7025D7E494B8015119695CEDB4C01972204@zpl02exm01.mpsc.mot.com> <3F8CAFAE.6260CFCF@freebsd.org>
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On Wed, Oct 15, 2003 at 12:23:42PM +1000, Peter Grehan wrote: > Clean interfaces would be the best. The ultimate is a single kernel that could > run on all combinations of processor and firmware, the true GENERIC, but I'm not > sure if that's possible. I think this is the wrong way to go. IMO, NetBSD has the right idea. Treat each PPC platform as a truely independent platform. They've got sys/arch/powerpc for the truly generic stuff. This allows them to support stuff like the BeBox, MacPPC, various IBM boxen, etc. This would be, IMO, similar to how FreeBSD handles the pc98 case... and the current powerpc stuff would be split up into MI (sys/powerpc) and MD (sys/powermac or sys/macppc maybe) portions. Darwin, and perhaps LinuxPPC, apparently handles the device enumeration and such without openfirware (actually BootX more or less renders any OF stubs unuseable). This is perhaps a nice goal, but IMO, it would be better to at least get everything working *with* OFW. This is of course easier with the new-world machines which have reasonable versions of OF. - alex
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