Re: [9fans] my ts7200 port

[Ethan Grammatikidis <eekee57@fastmail.fm>]

On Tue, 7 Jul 2009 12:36:31 +0100
Ethan Grammatikidis <eekee57@fastmail.fm> wrote:

> On Mon, 6 Jul 2009 23:50:14 -0400
> erik quanstrom <quanstro@quanstro.net> wrote:
>
> > On Mon Jul  6 19:41:36 EDT 2009, jrm8005@gmail.com wrote:
> > > On Mon, Jul 6, 2009 at 7:37 PM, ron minnich<rminnich@gmail.com> wrote:
> > > > I just ported the linux driver
> > >
> > > I'm interested in how hard this is, and how it might be made easier.
> >
> > that depends.  i've found that porting a driver or working backwards
> > from an example is often harder than just writing a new driver.
> > this is because the hard part is understanding how the hardware works,
> > not in coding that knowledge up.  and unfortunately, looking at a
> > linux driver hasn't been very instructive to me.
> >
> > i'm sure one could create a compatability layer for certain driver types
> > along the lines of ndiswrapper.  but given the instability of linux
> > internal interfaces, this might be finished about the same time as
> > duke nukem forever.
>
> What about emulating a usb-ethernet device in software? (Assuming the beagle board's usb interface can operate in gadget mode as opposed to host mode.) The Linux kernel does a good job of emulating a usb ethernet device, I use it extensively. I rather assumed the Bitsy port had this already, but perhaps not.

Huh, I just realised that if both ends of the fake ethernet link run Plan 9 then the only advantage of what I suggested would be that both ends of the link are known quantities with open source code.

Now I wonder if it might be simpler to implement 9p directly over USB.


--
Ethan Grammatikidis

Those who are slower at parsing information must
necessarily be faster at problem-solving.