On Wed, 9 Aug 2000, SUNAGAWA Keiki wrote:

> Jaron Omega <inphrared@ephemeron.org> wrote:
> 
> Slowness of console is mainly from disabling cache on the
> video RAM area.  I used to try to enable writh-through cache
> and it had great effect.

Also we don't have any video acceleration turned on. :-(

> In my own opinion, NetBSD doesn't aim to optimize too much
> for any arches, which easily break on other arches or MI/MD
> separation.  Although it impacts speed some time, clean
> design ensures stability and interchangeability.

This design philosophy has a lot of benefit. For instance, to get my
Ensoniq sound card working in my powermac, all I had to do was enable it
in the PCI config (after adding the audio device infrastrucutre). The
bus_space framework successfully abstracted away device i/o cleanly-enough
that the driver just worked on macppc. :-)

This design style is why it is relatively easy to port NetBSD to new
architectures. Parts are divided up so that you can reuse them. If the new
machine has a pci bus, you have a lot of waiting drivers. If it has a
PCMCIA or Cardbus interface, there are drivers. If someone already has
ported NetBSD to the CPU (m68k, powerpc, mips, etc.), then the CPU support
is waiting. You only need to write what is new. :-)

Also, as other parts get imporved, so can your port. Say it is a MIPS
machine, and a new MIPS chip comes out. If someone else ports NetBSD to
that chip (adds the chip-specific changes), then your port can benefit
from the changes.

It's really cool. :-)

Take care,

Bill