On Mar 22, Fernando D. Mato Mira wrote
> Hello,
> 
> Someone at `core' told me it's better to ask this here, so sorry if you've already
> seen this.
> 
> We have a project to implement a networking device where we are currently using VxWorks. 
> I've been asked to investigate whether we can replace it by Linux, but given the application, 
> I'm thinking NetBSD would be a better choice, if possible. The issues I identified so far are:
> 
> 1. Is NetBSD ROMable? Can one just execute from ROM, or must one load from ROM into a RAM disk 
> or something like that? 

I can't see why it couldn't execute from ROM. It may need some tweaks to
locore.

> 2. Is a `disk' required? 

What do you mean by disk ? NetBSD can run with a ramdisk (which could be in
ROM as well), but you need something to hold binaries.

> 3. How hard is in general to port Linux drivers to NetBSD? (in concrete terms, for a WaveLAN PCMCIA adapter). 

Better rewrite from scratch. But the NetBSD kernel interface is much better
than Linux, so this should not be hard.

> 4. Is there any support for ATM? Specifically, we use a telecom version of the PPC, the MPC860SAR, which adds 
> an Utopia ATM interface. Also, ATM ARP would be interesting, but we don't really need it. 

I don't think there is any ATM ARP yet (maybe there is something available
with Inria's IPv6 stuffs), but there is support for PVCs, and a driver for
efficient networks adapters.

> 5. What about IP masquerading?

It's called NAT (network address translation) in the non-linux world. It's
there, yes.

> 6. Finally, sorry about the heresy, but what about STREAMS divers?, that would be so cool..

I don't know what this is, so I can't anserw :)

--
Manuel Bouyer, LIP6, Universite Paris VI.           Manuel.Bouyer@lip6.fr
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