Re: cvs for powermac work

[ws%tools.de@localhost (Wolfgang Solfrank)]

> Dan> It looks like powermac is indeed going to need its own
> Dan> tree.
> 
> Dan> Any thoughts?
> 
> Kazuki Sakamoto and I talked about it yesterday, and got
> same conclusion.  We also thought that dev/powerpc should
> contains processor specific code like m68k or mips,
> dev/{bebox,powermac,etc.} should contain architecture
> specific ones.

(I assume you mean arch/powerpc etc., not dev/powerpc above).

This was the intent when arch/powerpc was introduced.  The fact that it
does contain a real port on its own (as opposed to e.g. arch/m68k) stems
from the fact that when I did this port it looked like all powerpc machines
would eventually have OpenFirmware.  The code in arch/powerpc was intended
as a reference port that would never support any device on its own, but
rely solely on OpenFirmware for device access.  This could then be used as
a basis for a port to the real hardware.

Unfortunately history shows that this expectation was deceptive :-(.  The
current situation is that the PowerPC standards that promised OpenFirmware
don't play a significant role any more: PReP is dead, CHRP (aka PPCP) is
mostly dead, too, and the OpenFirmware found in Apple's Macs is hopelessly
crippled (from what I hear).  (As an aside, if you followed the OpenFirmware
working group mailing list, you probably already noticed that Motorola doesn't
have intentions to do further work on this any more).

Anyway, the intended directory structure (as discussed with Jason and JT
at the time) was to separate cpu-specific code from architecture specific
code and create a separate directory tree under sys/cpu for the former and
leave sys/arch for the latter.  The current arch/m68k and arch/mips would be
moved completely to sys/cpu.  The current arch/powerpc would be moved in
part to sys/cpu/powerpc, leaving the OpenFirmware device support in
sys/arch/powerpc.

Would the original expectiation have become true, the part about walking the
OpenFirmware device tree would have moved into sys/cpu/powerpc, too, but
since this isn't widely deployed as was expected I think it should remain
in sys/arch/powerpc.

Ciao,
Wolfgang
-- 
ws%TooLs.DE@localhost     (Wolfgang Solfrank, TooLs GmbH)       +49-228-985800