I think the BLOBs are platform specific, but I may be mistaken. If
I'm right, there's no way that we'd get any momentum to turn this
around.

But your earlier comment is extremely valid, too few people are
working on drivers. Without wishing to fan Discordia's flames, it is
true that the 9fans community does not seem focused on solving
problems, but rather on the academic value of the ease in which
problems could be solved if one followed the 9 True Ways :-)

That said, how do we mobilise the community to focus on useful
drivers? I suppose we start with Ron's wish list, then we explore
Russ' partially complete postings (i386 emulation, Centrino drivers,
I'm sure I've forgotten many more) and thirdly we post a list of
willing contributors, possibly split into code writers and advisors.

Any takers?

++L

Good luck.

On Thu, Sep 4, 2008 at 8:47 AM, wrote:

Are you serious?
I have a crazy idea: how about you actually write one?

On Thu, Sep 4, 2008 at 1:47 AM, wrote:

Sometimes the binary bits are loaded into the cards, maybe most often,
and therefore can be done in plan9 as well. Depending on the vendor
you may need permission from them to distribute the binary part.

Or maybe they have already written the drivers they need, contributed
them to the community, and are busy developing solutions based on
Plan9.

I suspect that some of these drivers are missing still because the
hardware is not available to the developers who can write them.

cf. etherm10g.c. the myricom driver loads a metric ton of firmware into
the card.

[...]

This gets punted around every few months and nothing happens.

I've done some basic information-gathering but got no further for the
usual reasons,
so, in an effort to stimulate some inertia,
here's a small suggestion ...

Is there anyone out there who's gonna be in Volos and wants to
participate in a driver-writing BOF?

DaveL

On 4 Sep 2008, at 06:47, lucio@proxima.alt.za wrote:

On Thu, Sep 4, 2008 at 4:03 PM, mac.com> wrote:

I'm not gonna make it, but it's an interesting idea.

What would be more useful, possibly, is a tutorial on how to write a
driver, with a few case studies.

ron

Sounds like a really cool idea, maybe somebody with more experience in
the subject wants to give a short introduction, and then people can
start to work on their favorite wanted driver (alone or in groups)
while the 'expert'(s) in charge of the session can answer questions
and help whoever gets stuck.

Anyone from the Program Committee wants to comment on this? Richard?

Peace

uriel

P.S.: Maybe to make things easier, it would be helpful to setup a
public plan9 server people can both drawterm/cpu to and boot from
their custom kernels for testing purposes, that way even not-fully
functional laptops could be used for development.

On Fri, Sep 5, 2008 at 1:03 AM, mac.com> wrote:

Maybe similar sessions for 'file server writing' or 'limbo
programming' might be nice for those not familiar with those subjects
(and thanks to 9vx and hosted the required setups would allow people
with non-plan9 laptops to participate).

Peace

uriel

On Fri, Sep 5, 2008 at 2:41 AM, Uriel gmail.com> wrote:

Those of us who can't make it could volunteer to be on irc during the
sessions, modulo timezone issues (that's what coffee is for).

ron