From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 From: presotto@plan9.bell-labs.com To: 9fans@cse.psu.edu Subject: Re: [9fans] Crazy idea... or a new project? MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: multipart/mixed; boundary="upas-qzpwihrjbyokmsfzytnfukjgft" Message-Id: <20001124224019.301B219A18@mail.cse.psu.edu> Date: Fri, 24 Nov 2000 17:40:17 -0500 Topicbox-Message-UUID: 31d3ae3e-eac9-11e9-9e20-41e7f4b1d025 This is a multi-part message in MIME format. --upas-qzpwihrjbyokmsfzytnfukjgft Content-Disposition: inline Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit I seem to be missing messages from this stream so excuse me if this has already been suggested: I guess it depends on what problem you are trying to solve. We have lots (> 100) of systems that boot off of LAN's. We end up with kernels stuffed full of drivers because otherwise, we'ld have to keep a database lying around somewhere for each system and spend time making lots of kernels each time we change something. Granted we could write enough software to make this painless, but it's one more thing to screw up. I was actually fond of an idea I've heard from Rob or Ken, can't remember which. To address the problem, he suggested the dhcp daemon link the kernel on the fly. It could use a hardware vector passed in the dhcp request (generated from plan9.ini perhaps) and return the file name of the result so that the system could tftp it over. Unfortunately, I find this all a lot less of a problem than figuring out what IRQ's and IO ports to assign devices or that of getting a new VGA board working. --upas-qzpwihrjbyokmsfzytnfukjgft Content-Type: message/rfc822 Content-Disposition: inline Received: from plan9.cs.bell-labs.com ([135.104.9.2]) by plan9; Fri Nov 24 17:25:21 EST 2000 Received: from mail.cse.psu.edu ([130.203.4.6]) by plan9; Fri Nov 24 17:25:20 EST 2000 Received: from psuvax1.cse.psu.edu (psuvax1.cse.psu.edu [130.203.18.6]) by mail.cse.psu.edu (CSE Mail Server) with ESMTP id 246EB19A22; Fri, 24 Nov 2000 17:25:10 -0500 (EST) Received: from camus.cybercable.fr (camus.cybercable.fr [212.198.0.200]) by mail.cse.psu.edu (CSE Mail Server) with SMTP id EFD0219A16 for <9fans@cse.psu.edu>; Fri, 24 Nov 2000 17:24:37 -0500 (EST) Received: (qmail 8789541 invoked from network); 24 Nov 2000 22:24:22 -0000 Received: from d010.dhcp212-185.cybercable.fr (HELO coma) ([212.198.185.10]) (envelope-sender ) by camus.cybercable.fr (qmail-ldap-1.03) with SMTP for <9fans@cse.psu.edu>; 24 Nov 2000 22:24:22 -0000 Message-ID: <01e701c05665$44417500$0ab9c6d4@cybercable.fr> From: "Boyd Roberts" To: <9fans@cse.psu.edu> References: <20001124221338.13975.qmail@g.bio.cse.psu.edu> Subject: Re: [9fans] Crazy idea... or a new project? MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Priority: 3 X-MSMail-Priority: Normal X-Mailer: Microsoft Outlook Express 5.00.2615.200 X-MIMEOLE: Produced By Microsoft MimeOLE V5.00.2615.200 Sender: 9fans-admin@cse.psu.edu Errors-To: 9fans-admin@cse.psu.edu X-BeenThere: 9fans@cse.psu.edu X-Mailman-Version: 2.0rc1 Precedence: bulk Reply-To: 9fans@cse.psu.edu List-Id: Fans of the O/S Plan 9 from Bell Labs <9fans.cse.psu.edu> List-Archive: Date: Fri, 24 Nov 2000 23:24:09 +0100 From: Scott Schwartz > Just to digress for a moment, I've never liked the idea of loadable > device drivers, because they seeem like such a stopgap measure. maybe you could 'plumb' them. after boot the kernel gets handed up a file with rules/whatever to load device drivers based on interrupts or other device ready 'events'. i was thinking about digital uda-50 interfaces. you could just plug 'em in and ultrix would autoconf them at run (ie. any) time. of course, the driver was already loaded. probably hard to generalise, but it might work out. --upas-qzpwihrjbyokmsfzytnfukjgft--