Re: [9fans] Broadcom drivers, yet again

[erik quanstrom <quanstro@coraid.com>]

On Mon Oct 22 10:41:26 EDT 2007, xigh@free.fr wrote:
>     - Some SATA chipsets are now supported thanks to Erik, but you still 
> cannot install
>     plan9 to SATA devices because 9load has not been recompiled to do so 
> (yet).

this is not correct.  any sata chipset that will emulate the standard
interface is supported.  my cpu server is an nforce-whatever.  nvidia
sata is not supported at all.  but that chipset emulates a normal ata
device.  so i can use two drives with no problems and >40MB/s performace.
they show up as sdE0 and sdF0.

on the other hand, if you want to take advantage of what *AHCI* offers
above ata compatability mode and you want to boot from sata, you
will need to compile your own 9load (or use /n/sources/contrib/quanstro/9pxeload9).
if you use the ahci driver, you can use all 4/6 sata ports and the ide
channel at the same time, so you could boot from a small pata flash.
i tend to do this because it saves a drive and no one makes sata flash.

>     - Thanks to VESA support, almost all graphic cards are working 
> (except you can have
>     some freezes because realmode doesn't work well with mp).

doesn't work at all.  you can't switch to real mode with an mp system.
it may be possible to switch to vm86 with an mp system, but i haven't
tried.

- erik