ISA card and if_ed as module

[M. Warner Losh]

In message: <200408072049.i77KneE00932 at Mail.NOSPAM.DynDNS.dK>
            Barry Bouwsma <freebsd-misuser at remove-NOSPAM-to-reply.NOSPAM.dyndns.dk> writes:
: Is it to be expected that the kernel if_ed.ko module appears to
: be unable to probe and attach an ISA NIC, while when I build the
: ed* support into the kernel, it works?  This is with RELENG_4.

Yes and No.  If the ISA nic is PNP, it will just work.  IF not, you
have to have the 'hints' in the kernel.  I have the hints framework
backported, but I don't know if it was ever committed.

: Or should kernel modules be able to probe and attach ISA as well
: as pci/pccard devices?  Sorry if this is a questions@ type of
: question, but I'd like an explanation too...

pci and pccard are like PNP because the busses are self identifying.
ISA generally isn't a self identifying bus (but pnp changes it just
enough to make things automatic).

: I've added a bunch of debuggery to see which routines get invoked
: at `kldload' time.  I see that ed_pci_probe is called a couple of
: times, and at boot a couple more times.  However, in neither case
: does my debugging to indicate that any ISA probe might be happening,
: show up, which reflects the total absence of any ed0 messages at
: boot, unless I build the device into the kernel.

Right.  Adding it to the config file puts the 'hints' in the right
place.

: If there's a good reason why, I'll be happy to keep ed* in my kernel
: (maybe, I'm not sure if the presence of `miibus' as well causes
: problems with the autoloading of module miibus when other NIC
: modules get loaded...)

I think you should for 4.x.  In 5, you can set the hints directly and
leave it as automatic loading.

Warner