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SubjectRe: [RFC] modularization of i386 setup_arch and mem_init in 2.4.18
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Dave Jones <davej@suse.de> writes:

> On Fri, Mar 08, 2002 at 01:08:18PM -0800, Patricia Gaughen wrote:
> >
> > Hi,
> >
> > I'm currently working on a discontigmem patch for IBM NUMAQ (an ia32
> > NUMA box) and want to reuse the standard i386 code as much as
> > possible. To achieve this, I've modularized setup_arch() and
> > mem_init(). This modularization is what the patch that I've included
> > in this email contains.
>
> 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..

I will tenatively vote in favor of this kind of action. There
are a couple of directions to consider. This is a two dimensional
problem.

Dimension 1. Different basic hardware architectures.
(pc,numaq,visws,voyager)
Dimension 2. Different firmware implementations.
(pcbios,linuxbios,openfirmware,acpi?)

And beyond that it is fairly important to be able to build a generic
kernel. That works on everything. You might have to specify a
command line parameter to tell it which arch it is really running on
but it should work.

From working with the alpha I can say that it is just nasty when you
must have per motherboard information in your kernel. Generally life
is much more pleasant if a small handful of things like irq routing
information is provided by the firmware so you only have to code for a
specific hardware device, and not a specific motherboard.

And even if we get to the point of putting in motherboard specific
code I would suggest it just provide the information like irq routing,
and which superio chips are present and allow a more generic layer to
handle their setup.

Anyway on the multiplexing the firmware score I have just done the
heavy lifting needed so we can put the firmware switching logic
all in C code.

Eric
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