Date: Mon, 1 Jun 1998 08:48:02 +0100 (BST) From: Doug Rabson <dfr@nlsystems.com> To: Curt Sampson <cjs@portal.ca> Cc: Mike Smith <mike@smith.net.au>, hackers@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: AlphaBIOS documentation Message-ID: <Pine.BSF.3.95q.980601084158.330N-100000@herring.nlsystems.com> In-Reply-To: <Pine.NEB.3.96.980601001901.4124Z-100000@ascetic.portal.ca>
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On Mon, 1 Jun 1998, Curt Sampson wrote: > On Mon, 1 Jun 1998, Doug Rabson wrote: > > > Don't worry, I am fully aware of the PALcode problem. I think it will be > > a far easier problem to deal with the bootstrap installing PALcode than > > for it to have a complete set of device drivers. There is plenty of > > PALcode source in milo. > > There's plenty of device driver source code in Linux and NetBSD, too. :-) > > My point is, every time a new type of Alpha comes along, you have > to write new PALcode and compile it in to the boot loader. This is > not really all that different than having to write and compile in > a new device driver every time a new device comes along. Thats true enough but we can always fall back to SRM console for those cases. For device drivers, my problem is having to maintain stand and kernel versions of the driver. Pulling in unmodified drivers from the kernel source sounds fiddly and tedious. PALcode is at least small, self-contained and portable between operating systems. Ideally, DEC would put OSF palcode into AlphaBIOS and make it possible to switch to it using 'call_pal swppal'. -- Doug Rabson Mail: dfr@nlsystems.com Nonlinear Systems Ltd. Phone: +44 181 951 1891 Fax: +44 181 381 1039 To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-hackers" in the body of the message
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