Subject: Re: floppy controller tape devices
To: Gerald C. Simmons <>
From: Rob Healey <>
List: current-users
Date: 11/24/1997 10:08:39
> Thanks for the re-focus. ;^)  (No more CRAP)
> Actually, I've looked into the FreeBSD support of the floppy tape deives.
> It's been in their a long time and is fairly integrated into fd.c.  As I
> said before, I'm a hardware guy, and even trying to compare FreeBSD's fd.c
> and NetBSD's fd.c, I got well in over my head. Device drivers for Un*x or
> any OS, are not like tweaking inn or tin or even XFree86 and getting them to
> run. 
	Begin soapbox rant:

	One thing not mentioned in the long "crap" thread, as near as I
	can tell, is that ALOT of the discussions on the current list
	are x86 specific, i.e. I run NetBSD/Amiga and NetBSD/sparc and
	couldn't care less about what does or doesn't run on x86, alpha
	vax, powerpc and such and I'm sure there are others who couldn't
	care less if something runs on amiga or sparc. What we ALL care about
	is time taken away from the machine independant part of the OS to
	coddle to some machine dependant issue; usually x86 stupidity based...

	So, while my opinion of x86's pretty much mirror's Jason I don't care
	one way or the other as long as it only takes x86 code and people's
	time to add/fix the floppy whatsit or any other of the brain damaged
	devices foisted on the world by the x86 industry... I care ALOT when
	the talent that also deals with the MI part of the kernel is absorbed
	by an x86 MD thing because then it effects ALL the ports for no good
	reason as far as the N-1 other ports are concerned.

	One of the reasons I originally chose NetBSD over the other OS's
	available was because the core was smart enough not to waste valueable
	volunteer time on MD code, usually to support the braindamaged x86
	architecture, at the expense of the MI code important to ALL ports.
	I hope this does not change.

	My final comment is that if anybody has a piece of equipment, wintel
	based braindamaged or not, it is THEIR responsibily and NOT the core
	or port maintainers to write a driver if they want it to work. No
	more complaining about a pet device not working, FIX IT YOURSELF!
	how we got all the drivers we currently have anyways. Interested
	partys wrote the code for their pet device, asked the core about
	details when they got stuck, and submitted the driver to the
	port maintainer when it was working well enough for others to help
	out on. THAT is what NetBSD is all about, not complaining that a
	pet device hasn't been ported yet...

	End soapbox rant,
	Good luck on getting the floppy whatsit ported! I'm sure there are
	plenty of x86 people out there that could use it.