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Re: [MiNT] kernel modules
J. F. Lemaire wrote:
Unless I'm very much mistaken, that's exactly what Vincent just said.
Thanks, Jean-François, I was wondering if I was becoming totally mad.
m0n0 a wrote:
I don't think so ... Vincent points out that he __wants__ coldfire
binaries because it makes more sense to him (because of performance
reasons, probably).
Yes, I think that native binaries are the right thing to do for
cleanliness, simplicity, reliability, and optimal performance.
Everything else is a hack (but sometimes necessary).
But I wanted to point out that there is an __need__
for coldfire specifc kernel modules - no complete functionallity without
them. And I think that was the initial question.
This is a different question.
1) The FireBee is a Falcon with a ColdFire CPU. So let's compile any
Atari software for ColdFire instead of 68000, they will work instantly
at full speed on the FireBee. No need to change the algorithms, hardware
access... just make adjustment for the CPU differences. Since the
ColdFire and the 680x0 are very close, this is a quite easy task, while
sometimes tricky. I did that for EmuTOS, it just works. I'm currently
doing the same for FreeMiNT. I will be happy when I see on the FireBee
the exact same things I see on ARAnyM, with full ColdFire binaries and
nothing emulated.
2) The FireBee has additional hardware. Some directly inside the
ColdFire (serial port, PCI, Ethernet...), some on the board (SD-Card,
AC'97 audio...). Those will need additional drivers, they will have to
be written to support functionality, but is unrelated to the actual CPU.
So it would be possible to write an Ethernet driver for the FireBee,
compile it to 68000 and run it successfully with emulation. That would
be a nonsense.
So let's choose your favorite target and compile everything optimized
for it. First the sources (.c, *.S) have to be made compatible (my
current task), then fix the makefiles (big mess in FreeMiNT).
--
Vincent Rivière