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Newsgroups: comp.unix.bsd Path: sserve!manuel!munnari.oz.au!uunet!mcsun!Germany.EU.net!math.fu-berlin.de!unidui!du9ds3!veit From: veit@du9ds3.uni-duisburg.de (Holger Veit) Subject: Re: WD Ethernet Card not found on warmboot References: <1992Aug19.165319.14767@doug.cae.wisc.edu> <714317431.111@eyrie.img.com.au> <1992Aug21.171828.14323@doug.cae.wisc.edu> <1992Aug24.085511.21092@autelca.ascom.ch> Date: 24 Aug 92 15:46:45 GMT Reply-To: veit@du9ds3.uni-duisburg.de Organization: Uni-Duisburg FB9 Datenverarbeitung Sender: @unidui.uni-duisburg.de Message-ID: <veit.714671205@du9ds3> Lines: 72 In <1992Aug24.085511.21092@autelca.ascom.ch> nbladt@autelca.ascom.ch (Norbert Bladt) writes: >dinda@cae.wisc.edu (Dinda Peter) writes: >>In article <714317431.111@eyrie.img.com.au> athos@eyrie.img.com.au (David Burren) writes: >>>I also have an Elite16 Combo (it's the 8013E with AUI, BNC, & UTP) and >[ text about problems with WD-Ethernet board deleted. - NB >>Every solution I've gotten so far is to "recompile the kernel." I >>really wonder why Unix *still* doesn't have installable device drivers. >Buy Solaris 2.0 and you will get it (perhaps, i.e. I've not seen it). >>Is there a fundamental reason why Unix hasn't/will not support this? >No, because it will be done. However, if nobody really requests this, >nobody will spend time and money to implement it, right ? >Norbert. >Just my 2 Rp. >-- >Norbert Bladt, Ascom Autelca AG, Worbstr. 201, CH-3073 Guemligen, Switzerland >Phone: +41 31 999 65 52 FAX: +41 31 999 65 44 >Mail: nbladt@autelca.ascom.ch UUCP: ..!uunet!mcsun!chsun!hslrswi!aut!nbladt The main question is: DO YOU REALLY NEED THIS? Do you modify you hardware once a week, once a day or so? UNIX is not that memory restricted like MessDos such that you have to unload mouse drivers to get 3 bytes more in the lower 640K if you have a large program to run. This loading and unloading considerably decreased when I loaded a full featured OS/2, i.e. once the "best" configuration was found, I modified CONFIG.SYS only for alteration of paths and inclusion of enviroment variables (which has nothing to do with loadable device drivers). With the ISC UNIX and SCO Unix I used before, which have this feature (no, not really, this is yet another hidden kernel config!) I found the same: no kernel config for device drivers after the configuration was stable. However: much hack around with kernel generations to tune the parameters which is much more annoying. SunOS has loadable driver support as well. I once added some modification, but that's it for several years. You mustn't mix up loadable device drivers and bug fixes, which are quite frequent for the current 386BSD release; this is why this version has the number 0.1. This is not a system for you to USE and to complain about bugs. If you don't like this, buy a commercial product, and live with the bugs that are still in it (if you get patches at all: "No, we cannot help you with the bug in program 'foo', we recommend not to run 'foo' until our great new release 9.9.9 comes out, which you have to pay for very soon"). Concerning the "fundamental reason": Loadable drivers are very much like shared libraries, but especially for the kernel. Something like this, if implemented bad, can be a widely open security hole. But that's not the only reason: How would you test a new driver you have just developed (if at all) ? On a running system? If this system crashes because of an obvious or not so obvious bug? Are you alone on the system (yes, my PC => in this case you may also spend the 3 minutes to generate a new kernel, you have to reboot anyway)? With this 386bsd we have a system, that is really "open" (not OSF-open!); there is much more and important work to do than improving some admin-friendly interface. Holger -- | | / Holger Veit | INTERNET: veit@du9ds3.uni-duisburg.de |__| / University of Duisburg | BITNET: veit%du9ds3.uni-duisburg.de@UNIDO | | / Dept. of Electr. Eng. | "No, my programs are not BUGGY, these are | |/ Inst. f. Dataprocessing | just unexpected FEATURES"