Re: Synology DS109+ booting NetBSD (to root prompt)

[David Brownlee <abs%netbsd.org@localhost>]

On 9 August 2012 13:44, Greg Troxel <gdt%ir.bbn.com@localhost> wrote:
>
> Why do we have to have so many different 'arches'?  I get it that some
> processor families are different enough that one can't
> (currently/easily) build a single kernel that supports both, but I think
> we already have that, and I don't see the benefit of splitting to many.
> I could see ppc vs ppce (booke ppc), but I'm boggled by evbpcc and
> nasppc being different.  What's the reason it can't fit in one?

At one extreme you could only have a port per "anything that could
share a userland" (further complicated by the fact some ports can be
compiled BE or LE and handle different ABIs (arm vs earm).

At the other its one port per distinct GENERIC (which would involve
splitting most of the evb* ports as well as random other such as sun3
& sun3x).

I think we've evolved an uneasy compromise between the two,
exacerbated by the legacy of installing a whole chunk of sys/machine
headers which make identical MACHINE_ARCH ports gratuitously
different...