The role of OpenFirmware in arch/powermac

[Dan Jacobowitz <drow%mindcryme.com@localhost>]

I've been looking at this, and I think I've come to a conclusion.  It seems
that it should be possible to move all openfirmware calls to one place in
the very beginning of the kernel, or perhaps even in the booter once I
figure out what the heck I'm doing wrong with it.

Essentially, the calls are in three types: OF_{read,write,seek,open,close}
which have already proven themselves to be almost useless on the powermac;
OF_{finddevice,getprop,setprop,instance-to-package} which can be done all
at once - just build an internal copy of the device tree;
OF_{claim,chain,etc} which are fairly problematic already.

I am picturing this - claim all memory in the booter and get device
information {I'm not absolutely sure about OF_{peer,parent,child} but I
think that we can easily make equivalents of them on a local device tree if
they do what I think they do...going to go look that up).

Then, we will have two new options: booting from MacOS, where we can get
device info from NameResolverLib (I think that's what it's called), and
booting on the non-OF macs if anyone wants to tackle NuBus.

Any thoughts?

Even if we agree this is possible, don't expect it to happen overnight - I
haven't even begun implementing this yet.

Dan

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| Dan Jacobowitz                 | drow%drow.net@localhost                    |
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