Re: Adding new device support

[Hendrik Groeneveld]

On Thu, 13 Sep 2001, Roland McGrath wrote:

> > What is the "official/supported" method for adding new device drivers to
> > the kernel? I need support for a pdc20267 ATA/100 ide controller and
> > before I start working on a driver I'd like to know that the effort will
> > be useful.
>
> Whatever works. :-)

I was afraid that was going to be the answer...

> The existing IDE drivers used in gnumach are taken from Linux-2.0.x.
> You can modify those or try to drop a new Linux version in.

Unfortunately, the pdc202xx driver didn't appear until 2.3.x. I've looked
at the pdc202xx.c from my host system (2.4.9) and gluing this in is not
going to be a simple task. I could strip some really good stuff out of the
2.4.9 driver to fit it into the existing framework (which just seems
wrong). Dropping in a new Linux would be better but is more work than I
had in mind. The next question is "how long is gnumach going to play
catch-up with linux?" Is it going to be necessary to port new versions of
linux every few years or will gnumach eventually have its own way of doing
things?

> You might also consider trying oskit-mach, which gets its drivers from the
> OSKit.  The OSKit currently has IDE drivers from Linux-2.2.12, and it is
> pretty easy to drop newer Linux-2.2.x drivers into the OSKit source tree.

I thought I read that the OSKit was no longer supported. Putting a lot of
effort into a dead-end is what I'm trying to avoid.

-- 
Hendrik Groeneveld
hendrik@hg.com