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List:       freebsd-ppc
Subject:    Re: FYI: rudimentary loader for ppcbug-based systems
From:       Alex Zepeda <zipzippy () sonic ! net>
Date:       2003-10-15 4:47:06
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On Wed, Oct 15, 2003 at 12:23:42PM +1000, Peter Grehan wrote:

>  Clean interfaces would be the best. The ultimate is a single kernel that could
> run on all combinations of processor and firmware, the true GENERIC, but I'm not 
> sure if that's possible.

I think this is the wrong way to go.  IMO, NetBSD has the right idea.  Treat each
PPC platform as a truely independent platform.  They've got sys/arch/powerpc for
the truly generic stuff.

This allows them to support stuff like the BeBox, MacPPC, various IBM boxen, etc.

This would be, IMO, similar to how FreeBSD handles the pc98 case... and the
current powerpc stuff would be split up into MI (sys/powerpc) and MD (sys/powermac
or sys/macppc maybe) portions.

Darwin, and perhaps LinuxPPC, apparently handles the device enumeration and such
without openfirware (actually BootX more or less renders any OF stubs unuseable).  
This is perhaps a nice goal, but IMO, it would be better to at least get
everything working *with* OFW.  This is of course easier with the new-world
machines which have reasonable versions of OF.

- alex
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