Subject: Re: Pegasos port status
To: None <port-ofppc@netbsd.org, netbsd-ports@netbsd.org,>
From: Doug Fraser <dwfraser@onebox.com>
List: netbsd-ports
Date: 07/17/2006 15:25:30
Isn't that the whole point made by the fourth paragraph of this page?

http://www.firmworks.com/www/clntintf.htm#

-- 
Douglas Fraser
dwfraser@onebox.com



-----Original Message-----
From:     Tim Rightnour <root@garbled.net>
Sent:     Mon, 17 Jul 2006 12:03:20 -0700 (MST)
To:       Jorge Acereda Maciá <jacereda@gmail.com>
Cc:       port-ofppc@netbsd.org;netbsd-ports@netbsd.org;port-powerpc@netbsd.org;DataZap <az@datazap.net>;Raquel Velasco and Bill Buck <bbrv@genesi.lu>;Matt Sealey <matt@genesi-usa.com>;Allen Briggs <briggs@netbsd.org>
Subject:  Re: Pegasos port status


On 17-Jul-2006 Jorge Acereda Macia wrote:
> I don't know about MorphOS, but I'm afraid we're comparing apples and 
> oranges here. Linux just uses OF to discover devices, ofppc OTOH relies 
> on OF for things like accessing the hard disk or the ethernet. ofppc 
> thus needs far better OF support.

Yeah.. but the reality of the situation is that ofppc runs like a dog because
it runs purely in openfirmware.   The port was a good theory, in that one could
run purely on OFW and therefore run on everything that had OFW, but as we have
seen, minor little bugs in the OFW implementation of any product means that it
won't run correctly, and thats why the ofppc port has mostly sat unused.

What really should happen, is that we should use the OFW to probe the devices
on a machine, and then more or less run natively on the box, using a few OFW
callbacks where needed.  If I understand what Matt is saying, I think this is
what he is suggesting too.

I think asking the vendors to make thier hardware conform to our port is
pushing our luck a little bit.  :)  ofppc is a great jumping off point though.

---
Tim Rightnour <root@garbled.net>
NetBSD: Free multi-architecture OS http://www.netbsd.org/
Genecys: Open Source 3D MMORPG: http://www.genecys.org/