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List:       netbsd-tech-kern
Subject:    Re: Convenient use of firmload(9)
From:       Manuel Bouyer <bouyer () antioche ! eu ! org>
Date:       2007-01-19 8:51:20
Message-ID: 20070119085120.GA17369 () asim ! lip6 ! fr
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On Thu, Jan 18, 2007 at 03:21:35PM -0800, Jason Thorpe wrote:
> 
> On Jan 18, 2007, at 2:58 PM, Arnaud Lacombe wrote:
> 
> >On Thu, Jan 18, 2007 at 02:45:46PM -0800, Jason Thorpe wrote:
> >>>Somehow, some of those network devices can pxeboot a kernel - even
> >>>though
> >>>we need to download a massive file in order to use the device from
> >>>within
> >>>the kernel....
> >>
> >>...because they have a small firmware image in the ROM of the card  
> >>for
> >>that.
> >>
> >Doesn't such card have some "legacy" working mode that would allow  
> >us to
> >mount root from NFS without all their capabilities, and then beening
> >able to use them at "full speed" once the firmware is loaded ?
> 
> I guess that depends on the card, and I suppose it also depends on  
> whether or not some hypothetical "legacy" mode were even documented so  
> a driver could be written.

Not to mention that at last for one of these cards (bnx) we don't
have *any* doc. We have to live with whatever information and firmware
we can find in other open-source drivers.

-- 
Manuel Bouyer, LIP6, Universite Paris VI.           Manuel.Bouyer@lip6.fr
     NetBSD: 26 ans d'experience feront toujours la difference
--
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