> Hmm. I suppose I should ask this, and you can elucidate the kernel list
> with your answer: what about a piece of hardware like a NodeRunner
> (EEPROM configurable NE2000 clone). It's not PnP, but it is soft
> configurable. How does that fall into your resource management scheme?
Sure...but I'd prefer to do it in the future on the pnp-list :-)
I don't want to monopolize linux-kernel.
The PCI example:
The configuration manager (CM) says, "Hey, there is an NE2000 card
here. We need a NE2000 driver, so I'll tell kerneld (and/or the user)."
Your example:
The driver says, "Hey, is there any kind of NE2000 device on the
system?". The CM responds "yes", or "no". If "no", the driver says
to the CM, "okay, then I'm gonna search for one myself - just in case".
If the driver finds a device, it tells the CM, "btw, there is an NE2000
card attached, and it is using the following hardware resources..."
The CM thanks the driver kindly, and the rest of the PnP configuration
sequence is then followed.
Howzat?
Note: There will likely be 2 differnet configuration managers in the
system. The first one will handle simple configuration at boot, and
will be part of the kernel. The second one will handle post-boot
configuration (example: docking stations), and will be a user-space
program. It will handle the complex configuration of devices. To a
driver though, they will look as one CM.
-- Andrew E. Mileski mailto:aem@ott.hookup.net Linux Plug-and-Play Kernel Project http://www.redhat.com/linux-info/pnp/ XFree86 Matrox Team http://www.bf.rmit.edu.au/~ajv/xf86-matrox.html