Return-Path: Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org via listexpand id ; Fri, 8 Mar 2002 18:48:45 -0500 Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org id ; Fri, 8 Mar 2002 18:48:35 -0500 Received: from acolyte.thorsen.se ([193.14.93.247]:50438 "HELO acolyte.hack.org") by vger.kernel.org with SMTP id ; Fri, 8 Mar 2002 18:48:21 -0500 From: Christer Weinigel To: davej@suse.de Cc: gone@us.ibm.com, linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org, lse-tech@lists.sourceforge.net In-Reply-To: <20020308223330.A15106@suse.de> (message from Dave Jones on Fri, 8 Mar 2002 22:33:30 +0100) Subject: Re: [RFC] modularization of i386 setup_arch and mem_init in 2.4.18 In-Reply-To: <200203082108.g28L8I504672@w-gaughen.des.beaverton.ibm.com> <20020308223330.A15106@suse.de> Message-Id: <20020308234811.3F003F5B@acolyte.hack.org> Date: Sat, 9 Mar 2002 00:48:11 +0100 (CET) Sender: linux-kernel-owner@vger.kernel.org X-Mailing-List: linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org Dave Jones wrote: > As a sidenote (sort of related topic) : > An idea being kicked around a little right now is x86 subarch > support for 2.5. With so many of the niche x86 spin-offs appearing > lately, all fighting for their own piece of various files in > arch/i386/kernel/, it may be time to do the same as the ARM folks did, > and have.. > > arch/i386/generic/ > arch/i386/numaq/ > arch/i386/visws > arch/i386/voyager/ > etc.. Yes please. I've been working with at least 4 different National Semiconductor Geode based designs so far, and they will get more and more common I belive. It'd be nice not having to crap in the rest of the i386 tree just because one system has its own bootloader or special motherboard. I just got my SC2200 based board booting with LinuxBIOS, so I'll probably have to do a special kernel initialization that does some board-specific setup since there is no BIOS to do that. > The downsides to this: > - Code duplication. > Some routines will likely be very similar if not identical. > - Bug propagation. > If something is fixed in one subarch, theres a high possibility > it needs fixing in other subarchs Couldn't this be done with a common subroutine library, such as arch/i386/common that contains code to set up the interrupt controller and such. The PC platform code just includes everything, other platforms could be a bit more choosy, have its own bootloader and memory detection code and just skip the BIOS calls. /Christer -- "Just how much can I get away with and still go to heaven?" - To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe linux-kernel" in the body of a message to majordomo@vger.kernel.org More majordomo info at http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html Please read the FAQ at http://www.tux.org/lkml/