Subject: Re: Food for thought.
To: None <chris@buzzbee.freeserve.co.uk,port-arm32@netbsd.org>
From: Ben Harris <bjh21@cam.ac.uk>
List: port-arm32
Date: 01/09/2001 12:36:07
In article <01010822591004.00645@pinky> you write:
>I thought it was about time to send a mail with some ideas/things that'd be 
>good to get into 1.6, some of these have been suggested, so I'm just hoping 
>to spark some discussion on them, eg what is pheasible etc.

Be aware that 1.6 is planned to be forked in February (ie in about a month). 
Anything that can't be committed before then will have to wait another
(hopefully fairly short) cycle.

>1.6 stuff (well be nice to have some of these :)
>Merge arm26 and arm32 bits together where possible (ben's done some work on 
>this)

Most of the places where the sources are similar will be using the same
source by 1.6, assuming you (or someone else) can test it all on arm32.
Shared podulebus drivers don't stand a chance of getting in for 1.6.

>Work on common version of Elf for all arm platforms.  There was talk of a new 
>abi for this.

I suspect time is a bit short for this.

>Update the FAQ, eg add in solution to the powertec workaround (ie specify the 
>actual podule id for cards)

Kjetil B. Thomassen got some information about the correct way to identify
cards with PowerROMs.

<URL:http://home.eunet.no/~kjetilbt/power-tec.mbox>

This requires support for running podule loaders, which NetBSD/arm26 has
(sys/arch/arm26/podulebus/podloader.S), but NetBSD/arm32 doesn't.

-- 
Ben Harris                                                   <bjh21@netbsd.org>
Portmaster, NetBSD/arm26               <URL:http://www.netbsd.org/Ports/arm26/>