Re: [Etherboot-developers] Etherboot.zdsk suggestions...

[Paolo S. <al...@io...>]

Hi!

Ken Yap ha scritto:
> 
> >Ok, if needed I can do it.... but the simplest and fastest way is
> >building the etherboot.zdsk image, make the floppy, and try it on a PC
> >without network card (so it will probe everything....): the main target
> >is having no driver probing infinite times the same network card (so no
> >ESC will be required...); the second target is having coherent and
> >limited output from each driver probing...
> 
> Please take a few moments to document the behaviour and post to this
> list.

Ok....done!

I've added in the makefile this section:

-----
# Rule for the NIC-autoprobing image. (by Paolo Salvan)
NETOBJS:=
NETOBJS+=		$(BIN)/3c595.o $(BIN)/3c90x.o $(BIN)/cs89x0.o
$(BIN)/davicom.o $(BIN)/depca.o $(BIN)/e1000.o $(BIN)/eepro.o
$(BIN)/eepro100.o $(BIN)/epic100.o $(BIN)/fa311.o $(BIN)/natsemi.o
$(BIN)/ns8390.o $(BIN)/pcnet32.o $(BIN)/prism2_pci.o $(BIN)/prism2_plx.o
$(BIN)/sis900.o $(BIN)/sk_g16.o $(BIN)/sundance.o $(BIN)/tg3.o
$(BIN)/tlan.o $(BIN)/tulip.o $(BIN)/via-rhine.o $(BIN)/w89c840.o
$(BIN)/3c503.o $(BIN)/ne.o $(BIN)/wd.o $(BIN)/rtl8139.o
# These drivers show "noise" on the screen, will be probed last
#NETOBJS+=		$(BIN)/3c529.o $(BIN)/3c515.o $(BIN)/3c509.o
$(BIN)/smc9000.o

$(BIN)/etherboot-net.o: $(NETOBJS)
	$(LD) -r $(NETOBJS) -o $@
-----

Consider including it (or something similar, easier to mantain) in the
makefile...

This is similar to the etherboot.o image, but I've excluded:
- disk/ drivers, I think they are not needed (is this right?)
- skel.o driver, I think it is not needed (is this right?)
- duplicated drivers (some drivers were included two times)

I've reordered the drivers, so the ones writing on the screen or
requiring an ESC to be pressed in order to skip his probing are probed
last...

The drivers that write noise on the screen are:
------------------
3c529.o: writes repeatedly:

    3c509: eeprom busy.
    (probe fail)
    Warning assuming presence of MCA bus
    MCA card not found

...and require ESC to continue
------------------
3c515.o writes repeatedly dots ".........................."

The second time is is probed, writes instead:

    0 3c515 cards found

...and require ESC to continue   
------------------
3c509.o writes repeatedly:

    3c509: eeprom busy.
    (probe fail)

...and require ESC to continue
------------------
smc9000.o: no real problems.... simply writes a "...driver
version....\ncopyright...\nNo SMC9000 Adapter found" after writing his
name, not coherent with other drivers...
------------------
sk_g16: no real problems.... simply writes a "\n" after writing his
name, not coherent with other drivers...
------------------
> >No problem... the big problem was WHERE to put my hand to prevent this
> >file to be included in etherboot.zdsk; at the end I changed genrules.pl,
> >but I'm not really sure it is the right place...
> 
> It's already commented out in the 5.2.1 I believe.

No....it wasn't...   :o(

> >I think we should provide a simple way to build custom "50 driver in a
> >single image" image: ie, providing a file with the driver list somone
> >want to include...
> >This file could be auto generated during the build process, and the user
> >can comment/uncomment the drivers he want to include in the final
> >image...
> 
> If you would like to look at this and send in some software that would
> be good. However a multidriver image is only a medium priority item
> because it would be useful only as a probe floppy, it would be slow as a
> production floppy.

Just tested... a multi-driver floppy is slower than a single-driver
floppy of a trascurable time (about 2-3 seconds...); his size is 80kb in
place of 32kb, and autodetecting overhead is 0 for pci card, minimal for
the ISA one... (excluding the forementioned drivers...)

And I don't need to list the advantages of having a single disk type for
every NIC! ;o)

bye!

Paolo