[PATCH] pc386: Add virtio network driver

[Chris Johns]

  [ hijacked thread ]

On 31/05/2016 21:05, Sebastian Huber wrote:
> the x86 architecture is not really interesting for me. So, I am not
> against a mainline integration.

Great.

> However, I think we reached a dead end with the pc386 BSP.

I do not agree, the BSP is alive and working ... <tap><tap> ... yeap my 
i7 box with 2G of RAM, a RealTek PCIe card, and booting over PXE and 
iPXE is working nicely.

The PC BSP is one of the older real hardware BSPs in RTEMS still valid 
today with a single continuous line of improving hardware development. 
The BSP is in need of some attention to work on the latest PC hardware 
or UEFI only boards like the Minnow Max but stating it is a dead end is 
a statement I would not use. It needs UEFI, ACPI and APIC support and 
then some work in the SMP area because that support is now broken.

I have looked over the BSP code and I do not agree a wholesale dump of 
FreeBSD x86 support is need. Intel provides a range of code that can be 
used to support some of these new PC standards and the bulk of FreeBSD's 
support is that code. It just needs some attention.

The PC is an ideal tier 1 BSP and that is something we will need. I 
would like to see real hardware in the OSL in our rack and used for testing.

> The RTEMS driver infrastructure is not capable
> enough to deal with a plug-and-play architecture like x86.

This does not make sense to me and I fail to see how it relates to the 
previous statement. The original classic API for RTEMS is based on a VME 
bus standard and while not a hot swap bus architecture it did allow a 
plug in architecture based on a huge range of slave boards. The fact an 
architecture or bus has plug-and-play support does not mean RTEMS has to 
provide such support nor a BSP has reached a dead end because it does not.

Chris