[Info-vax] X86 first boot? - A Really Stupid Question

[Chris]

On 03/29/19 22:03, Simon Clubley wrote:
> On 2019-03-29, Phillip Helbig (undress to reply)<helbig at asclothestro.multivax.de>  wrote:
>>
>> If patches etc were available for hobbyist use again, you would have
>> many people happy to test, a bit bolder than in a production
>> environment.  With x86, hardware won't be such a bottleneck with
>> hobbyists.
>>
>
> The availability of patches is only a small part of the problem.
>
> The real problem is writing the drivers to support that hardware
> in the first place.
>
> What happens when you try it on some hardware and find it doesn't
> work ? How do you fix the problem when you don't have access to
> the source code for the driver ?
>
> In the open source world, where people _do_ have access to the
> source code, there are plenty of people with the ability to
> track down the problem and supply fixes. Having access to the
> driver source code means that ability can be used to actually
> find and fix the problem.
>
> It's also a _lot_ easier and quicker to write, and especially
> debug, a driver in the Linux world than it is in the VMS world.
>
> Try writing a few BSPs for an embedded OS and you will get an
> understanding of the real problem here.
>
> I can fully understand VSI's dilemma.
>
> Simon.
>


Perhaps it doesn't need to be. Would think they will be using
quite a bit of open source code in the re-engineered VMS in
any case. Reviewing  open source drivers would save a lot of
time compared with starting from scratch. Some of it may even
be usable without major change, using wrapper functions, though
interrupt handling might be a problem. Still a major piece of
work though.

The advantage oss infrastructure has is that it has been developed
and fine tuned over decades, with much of it common to all the os
systems. Lot of commercial support as well, both financial and in
expertise...

Chris