[src/trunk]: src/distrib/notes/i386 first cut of whatis for 1.4

[perry <perry%NetBSD.org@localhost>]

details:   https://anonhg.NetBSD.org/src/rev/71980075e7f1
branches:  trunk
changeset: 467359:71980075e7f1
user:      perry <perry%NetBSD.org@localhost>
date:      Tue Mar 23 18:57:19 1999 +0000

description:
first cut of whatis for 1.4

diffstat:

 distrib/notes/i386/whatis |  42 ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++--------------
 1 files changed, 28 insertions(+), 14 deletions(-)

diffs (57 lines):

diff -r 9d063357f865 -r 71980075e7f1 distrib/notes/i386/whatis
--- a/distrib/notes/i386/whatis Tue Mar 23 18:39:38 1999 +0000
+++ b/distrib/notes/i386/whatis Tue Mar 23 18:57:19 1999 +0000
@@ -1,25 +1,39 @@
-.\"    $NetBSD: whatis,v 1.7 1999/01/13 07:30:05 ross Exp $    
+.\"    $NetBSD: whatis,v 1.8 1999/03/23 18:57:19 perry Exp $
+.Pp
+As is usual between releases, the i386 port has had many improvements
+made to it -- too many to detail all of them here.
 .Pp
-i386-specific enhancements include a number of new device drivers, such
-as the Intel Etherexpress FE drivers, ATAPI support, and others.
-See the hardware compatibility list for supported devices.
+Numerous new drivers have been added. See the supported hardware list
+for details.
 .Pp
-Other (but not all) i386-specific improvements are:
+Some (but not all!) notable i386-specific improvements include:
+.Pp
 .Bl -bullet
 .It
-APM support
+Lennart Augustsson has added full USB support, permitting the use of a 
+wide variety of Universal Serial Bus peripherals.
 .It
-bounce-buffer support so that busmaster ISA controllers work
-for machines with \*> 16MB
+Manuel Bouyer's PCIIDE work now permits full DMA support on IDE
+controller/drive combinations that support it. This dramatically
+improves performance on supported hardware.
 .It
-floppy formatting support
+New i386 boot blocks now support INT13 extensions. This means that on
+modern BIOSes, it is possible to boot a NetBSD partition that is past
+the old 1024 cylinder boundary. The new boot blocks also support a
+mechanism to pass BIOS geometry information to the kernel, permitting
+improved automation during installs.
 .It
-improved detection of the amount of memory present in the machine
-.It
-support for FAT32 filesystems
+The i386 port also now uses libkvm -- libkvm.old has finally been purged.
 .El
 .Pp
-.Nx 1.3
+.Nx 1.4
 on i386 is, as usual, also fully backward compatible with old
 .Nx
-i386 binaries, so you don't need to recompile all your local programs.
+i386 binaries, so you don't need to recompile all your local programs
+provided you set the appropriate binary compatibility options in your
+kernel configuration.
+.Pp
+The i386 will be switching executable formats from a.out to ELF in
+the next release. The support for this has already been completed, but 
+was judged too new to be included in
+.Nx 1.4 .