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Newsgroups: comp.unix.bsd.netbsd.misc Path: euryale.cc.adfa.oz.au!newshost.anu.edu.au!harbinger.cc.monash.edu.au!news.rmit.EDU.AU!news.unimelb.EDU.AU!munnari.OZ.AU!spool.mu.edu!howland.reston.ans.net!swrinde!newsfeed.internetmci.com!news.kei.com!nntp.coast.net!swidir.switch.ch!swsbe6.switch.ch!surfnet.nl!newshost.vu.nl!cs.vu.nl!philip From: philip@cs.vu.nl (Philip Homburg) Subject: Re: Help! NetBSD doesn't recognize my ethernet card! Nntp-Posting-Host: centaur.cs.vu.nl References: <4fj0no$dac@Radon.Stanford.EDU> <4fll8g$btc@sundog.tiac.net> <4floja$t6j@Radon.Stanford.EDU> <4fn0pk$r9v@carol.fwi.uva.nl> Sender: news@cs.vu.nl Organization: Fac. Wiskunde & Informatica, VU, Amsterdam Date: Tue, 13 Feb 1996 21:37:33 GMT Message-ID: <DMqHEM.Gpp.0.-s@cs.vu.nl> Lines: 27 In article <4fn0pk$r9v@carol.fwi.uva.nl>, Frank van der Linden <frank@fwi.uva.nl> wrote: %yue@heron.Stanford.EDU (Kenneth C. Yue) writes: % %>Huh? Are these parameters hard-coded into the kernel? Why? Except %>for the hard drive parameters (for an obvious reason), shouldn't all %>these hardware parameters be stored in a configuration file, and %>NetBSD looks at this file when it boots? If such a file doesn't %>exist, or if the data in it are invalid, fine, just use the defaults. %>If all these parameters are really hard-coded into the kernel, how do %>I rebuilt the kernel? % %I hate to disappoint you, but: yes. Currently, none of the freely available %OSs do it this way (although some of them are probably moving in that %direction). It depends on your definition of "free" but the Minix boot monitor passes strings like DPETH0=280:3:D0000, or AHA0=330:15:1:00 to the kernel. These boot environment variables are stored in the first disk sector following the bootblock. see http://nano.cs.vu.nl/man/Minix-vmd/man8/boot.8.html and http://nano.cs.vu.nl/man/Minix-vmd/man8/monitor.8.html for details. Philip Homburg