Subject: RE: Pegasos port status
To: None <tls@rek.tjls.com>
From: Matt Sealey <matt@genesi-usa.com>
List: port-powerpc
Date: 07/14/2006 05:19:41
 

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Thor Lancelot Simon [mailto:tls@rek.tjls.com] 
> Sent: Thursday, July 13, 2006 5:38 PM
> To: Matt Sealey
> Cc: port-powerpc@NetBSD.org; netbsd-ports@NetBSD.org; 
> port-ofppc@netbsd.org
> Subject: Re: Pegasos port status
> 
> On Thu, Jul 13, 2006 at 10:40:58AM -0500, Matt Sealey wrote:
> >  
> > The official response is: you don't need to know :)
> > 
> > The pins that are used are configured in a 
> hardware-dependant way, and 
> > this is done by the Genesi HAL.
> 
> You're saying that to run NetBSD on this box, we must load 
> the "Genesi HAL" into the NetBSD kernel?  Or is it a "HAL" in 
> some other sense?

No it's basically something we sit our OF implementation on top
of so that we don't have to reimplement thousands of lines of C
code assembler INSIDE the Open Firmware, eases testing and so on.

Once it's done, and the Firmware is up, nobody ever need touch
any configuration of the chipsets, this is the whole point of
firmware. It's not DINK :)

> Well, to be more precise, the ofppc port is said to run, 
> sort-of, modulo severe OpenFirmware bugs in the only firmware 
> that was ever made available to BSD developers.
> 
> Will working OpenFirmware (like that made available to the 
> people who did the Linux port)

Let this be said, and I make no bones about this; nobody who ever
ported Linux to Pegasos ever had a working firmware :P

> be made available to BSD developers?

You have the same as they do (1.2). There are 4 people in the world
I can name off the top of my head who do Linux PowerPC kernel work
and have a newer version than has been released publically, and they
are Sven Luther, Benjamin Herren

-- 
Matt Sealey <matt@genesi-usa.com>
Manager, Genesi, Developer Relations