Re: documentation on kernel locks, mutexes?

[Hiten Pandya]

--- Terry Lambert <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> I was thinking more in terms of device driver information. All
> of the "how to write a driver for newbus", "how to write a CAM
> driver", "how to use devfs from the kernel", "what XXX to do in
> FreeBSD, given YYY in Linux", "how to port a driver from Linux
> to FreeBSD", etc., are missing.

Well, there is a chapter, that gives a good introduction to newbus in the Developers Handbook. IMHO, it gives enough pointers to the reader, so he can begin his journey on Newbus Avenue.

I will continue documenting it, as I learn more. Once my exams are over, I will start looking into how ACPI affects Newbus etc, and things like that. We lack information on bus_space(9) and bus_dma(9), the latter one is mostly finished, and I will resume on it, as time permits. URL:
http://www.FreeBSD.ORG/doc/en/books/developers-handbook/newbus.html

on -CURRENT:
# apropos 9 | less

Indicates that we have a good deal of manual pages, which document kernel interfaces. Its just a matter of someone putting their time in documenting it for the Developers-Handbook. Thanks to Doug Rabson for the excellent set of VFS manual pages and many others! FWIW, there is a doc, somewhere on the net, in which R. Watson has documented the VOP table, which is better than nothing.

Regarding "what XXX to do in FreeBSD, given YYY in Linux", is quite a difficult topic to cover, because, documenting each opposite will take us centuries. Although, documenting FreeBSD<->Linux VFS is one of the simple things.

No comment on your last one. :-)

> While it's true that kernel locks and mutexes are documented for
> SMPng, he posted to -hackers, not -current, and so he's probably
> not interested in -current primitives that aren't available in
> the 4.x -RELEASE and -STABLE branches.

Erm. IIRC, there is documentation lockmgr(), lockinit(), lockdestroy() etc. in -STABLE.

Also, make sure you read the paper, available at the following URL:
http://www.lemis.com/~grog/SMPng/

--
Hiten
[EMAIL PROTECTED], [EMAIL PROTECTED], [EMAIL PROTECTED]


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