Messages in this thread | | | Date | Fri, 28 Aug 1998 21:52:15 -0400 | From | David Boynton <> | Subject | IsaPNP et al |
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How's this for an architecture:
1. At boot time, before device loading, kernel obtains combined list of known hardware from BIOS by whatever means available. Not just ISAPNP, but PCI, SBUS, VME - whatever is available to the platform.
2. Device drivers have access to the list via an api during loading, and can register ownership of devices, and/or interest in receiving notifications of device events. Both compiled-in and modular drivers are supported.
3. Upon receipt of device events (hot swapped PCMCIA cards, USB, etc.), kernel notifies interested device drivers, and possibly a user-space daemon listening to a /dev/something.
I can't think of a simpler, platform-inclusive way of doing this. At no time does the kernel need to have a master list of device IDs. Would this require recoding of drivers? No, unless they want to take advantage of it. Nothing broken, just a new CONFIG item.
Dave
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