Subject: Re: Questions about features of NetBSD
To: Carsten Hammer <chammer@phyd2hammer.uni-bielefeld.de>
From: Carsten Hammer <chammer@phyd2hammer.uni-bielefeld.de>
List: current-users
Date: 04/13/1995 11:15:53
Hi,
As there are now some opinions i want to resume:


> I want to know if there is/will be/is anybody working on the following things 
> for NetBSD:
> 
> 1. fat binaries

there is interest but at the moment we are far away from it
due to open questions how to manage compiling,linking,etc..
kernel seems to be one of the tinniest problems as i understand.

> 
> 2. cdf (context dependent filesystems like in hpux)

Jason Thorpe has a clear opinion towards it:) 
Most of you dont seem to know what it is: 
You make a directory with the name of the binary. Then
put the binary with the name of the hostname (eg.) in it.
The directory has to get a flag to be a "cdf". The directory
then is recognized without certain options as a binary containing
the binary with the matching hostname. 
This maybe a solution to the cdrom boot problem, not?


> 
> 3. machine independent console driver for isa graphicscards 

nobody is working at it, interest seems to be there

> 
> 4. improved sup with diff downloading for little changes

no opinions

> 
> 5. merging of xserver sources for all platforms, integration in
>    netbsd source tree

no opinions

> 
> 6. plug&play for isa

perhaps nobody knows what it is? It is a new extension to
isa with the ability to configure irqs,io adresses and certain
features of isa cards. I have a Ne2000 compatible card that
has the ability for shared ram but without "isa plug&play"
there is no way for switching this feature on. There are 
no jumpers. Read an article in the german "c't" magazin 
i think 2/95 or 3/95 about it. 

> 
> 7. possibility to use i386 formatted hds on 68k and the other way round,
>    this needs removing of including machine dependent disklabel.h in
>    platform independent disklabel.h as far as i understand,not?

some ideas, i would be happy if i could mount a i386 formatted ide
hd via compile time option but the netbsd core team seems to 
tend to more "round" solutions:)

thanks for your interest,
ciao
Carsten