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Date: Tue, 01 Jul 2003 09:34:21 -0700
From: "H. Peter Anvin" <hpa@zytor.com>
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To: Andy Isaacson <adi@hexapodia.org>
CC: "David S. Miller" <davem@redhat.com>, linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org
Subject: Re: PCI domain stuff
References: <bdr7a6$4eu$1@cesium.transmeta.com> <1057039376.32118.3.camel@rth.ninka.net> <3F0124FC.1010001@zytor.com> <20030630.230329.35692088.davem@redhat.com> <20030701113043.A27060@hexapodia.org>
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Andy Isaacson wrote:
> On Mon, Jun 30, 2003 at 11:03:29PM -0700, David S. Miller wrote:
> 
>>   From: "H. Peter Anvin" <hpa@zytor.com>
>>   Date: Mon, 30 Jun 2003 23:06:52 -0700
>>
>>   Perhaps a libdirectio would be useful?
>>   
>>The details are very PCI specific, so what you'd be working
>>on initially is a PCI centric library.
>>
>>Over time things can be abstracted, but the initial PCI specific
>>one would be good enough for xfree86 to link to and make use
>>of which is a huge step in the right direction.
> 
> 
> There is some interest in the NetBSD project for such an API, as well.
> <fair at netbsd.org> filed xsrc/21986 last week.
> http://www.netbsd.org/cgi-bin/query-pr-single.pl?number=21986
> 
> Perhaps a common implementation could develop.
> 
> (OK, I can dream...)
> 

Right, and the article brings up a particularly nasty issue -- PCI 
probing from userspace is dangerous as it's inherently not atomic.  That 
really *is* the kernel's job, and abstracting that via a library would 
make it a lot less obnoxious from XFree86's standpoint.

	-hpa


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