> > On Thu, Feb 02, 2006 at 09:35:56AM -0000, Jenkins, Clive wrote: > > A driver for some device that could be connected to (or plugged into) > > a variety of different platforms of different architecture. > > A driver for a core that could be implemented within an FPGA on > > multiple platforms.
> Well, this is all nice but I was wondering about _real_ examples. > When you are talking about "connecting" or "plugging" you have to keep > in mind actual bus interconnect. So far AFAIK PCI (and derivatives) > are the only cross-arch bus. Yes, I do realise that in most cases PCI is used for cross-arch interconnect. But without knowing about all the relevant hardware in the world, I couldn't say that there are no other cross-arch buses. And what about direct connection to the local bus of the processor chip? > So basically, you have no _real_ life examples, so I'm wondering why > people need this "arch-independent" non-PCI I/O accessors for > something which doesn't exist. I could draft a design of such an example, and I could realise that design by building it. But I don't want to spend the time and money doing it. Neither do I want to spend time researching _real_ examples. It is much easier to allow for obvious possibilities that _could_ exist and probably will exist if they don't already, than searching the world. Why be PCI-centric now, when we have experienced no end of problems because Linux was x86-centric in the past? > I think the reason why Linux doesn't have this stuff follows from the > previous paragraph. Clive
