Subject: Re: DEC hardware question
To: None <port-alpha@netbsd.org>
From: der Mouse <mouse@Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA>
List: port-alpha
Date: 07/19/2002 03:12:36
>>> [drivers are bus-specific but not machine-specific]
>> Well, that's the theory.  In practice, there have been problems,
>> particularly with PCI busses on big-endian machines [...]
> Actually, this has not been much of a problem in practice.  Many PCI
> drivers in NetBSD have worked out of the box on e.g. macppc.

Well, "much of a problem" is relative.  I was once on a consluting gig
where we had to hack on the driver for the Ethernet chip in use because
of endianness issues.  (I wasn't doing that part, so I don't know how
much of a mess it was to do.  I glanced over the result and it looked
fairly extensive, but all that means, really, is that they were
textually scattered.)

There are probably fairly few drivers with problems.  If you don't want
to use any of them, it's no problem at all; if you do, it's a pain.  In
the Grand NetBSD Scheme Of Things, Jason is probably right, it's not
much of a problem - but for an individual situation, it can be a PITA.

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