SPARC vs. the MPSAFE TTY layer

[Marius Strobl]

On Tue, Jun 24, 2008 at 08:34:01PM +0200, Ed Schouten wrote:
> Hello SPARC hackers,
> 
> Last week I sent this message to some of the FreeBSD lists, to discuss
> my work on the new TTY layer I'm working on. The entire message is
> available at:
> 
> 	http://lists.freebsd.org/pipermail/freebsd-arch/2008-June/008270.html
> 
> ----- Forwarded message from Ed Schouten <ed at 80386.nl> -----
> > Date: Mon, 16 Jun 2008 20:56:32 +0200
> > From: Ed Schouten <ed at 80386.nl>
> > To: FreeBSD Arch <arch at FreeBSD.org>, FreeBSD Current <current at FreeBSD.org>
> > Subject: MPSAFE TTY layer - Testers? Reviews?
> 
> [...]
> 
> > - The sio(4), cy(4), digi(4), ubser(4), uftdi(4), nmdm(4), ng_h4(4),
> >   ng_tty(4), sl(4), ppp(4), snp(4), rp(4), rc(4), si(4), umodem(4),
> >   dcons(4), IA64 SKI console driver and Sun4V console driver have not
> >   been ported yet. ucom(4) also needs to be polished. sio(4) should be
> >   replaced by uart(4). Help wanted.
> ----- End forwarded message -----
> 
> There are actually two things which should be of interest to the SPARC
> people:
> 
> - The Sun4V console driver does not compile anymore. It needs some work
>   to get it back to a usable state. I don't own a Sun4V machine, which
>   means I can't fix it.
> 
> - The SPARC64 ofw_console(4) driver has been ported, but for some reason
>   there doesn't seem to be such a device on my U5. I don't have the U5
>   anymore (I temporarily borrowed the U5 at the office). I would really
>   like it if someone would test this driver on his/her hardware.

The ofw_console(4) driver is more like a pseudo-driver as it
doesn't attach to real hardware but does all or nothing (i.e.
both input and output) via the firmware. Hence in order to use
it you need to throw out syscons(4), uart(4) and all drivers
attaching to the real hardware like atkbdc(4), creator(4) etc
out of the kernel configuration file.

Marius