About BSD......

[albertlee]

I have just installed FreeBSD on my laptop.......

 

and when I insert my PCMCIA network card after reboot, it shows this message:

 

card bus 0: <network> at device 0.0 (no driver attached)

vbb0: cardbus card activation failed

 

 

I have search on the Internet for this, and people say there is NetBSD, which runs on just everything, but does that mean every platform, or every hardware?

 

 

Secondly, is it possible to make a driver ourselves for FreeBSD?

Albert

[Cohen]

which runs on just everything, but does that mean every platform, or every hardware?

 

How are we supposed to know without knowing what the original context was? If you mean architecture then here's a complete list of NetBSD ports:

 

http://www.netbsd.org/Ports/

 

(got to admit I'm impressed they've ported it to RiscPC)

 

As for hardware here's the list of supported devices:

 

http://www.netbsd.org/Hardware/

 

is it possible to make a driver ourselves for FreeBSD?

 

Eh, yes but it requires programming skill and a knowledge of how the hardware works.

[albertlee]

As for hardware here's the list of supported devices:

 

http://www.netbsd.org/Hardware/

 

Eh' date=' yes but it requires programming skill and a knowledge of how the hardware works.[/quote']

 

Cohen, and any one elses, I was wondering that FreeBSD claims to run on most of the hardwares, and NetBSD runs like anything........

 

I am a bit pissed off now that either my FreeBSD can't detect my PCMICIA cardbus network wireless card, that I can't access the internet under BSD..

 

So, I am thinking will NetBSD run on it.....since my laptop is just 1 year old, and my hardware is not kind of weird.......

 

Anyway, for programming the driver, can I just configure/edit the BSD kernel in order to get my cardbus card work?

 

Apreciate the responds in advance

 

Albert

[Dave]

Anyway, for programming the driver, [b']can I just configure/edit the BSD kernel in order to get my cardbus card work? [/b]

 

Yes, but you need to know how to do 2 things:

1) Alter the BSD kernel - i.e. you need to know how the kernel works in order to modify it in the first place.

2) Reverse engineer the card to develop the modules if no existing API documentation exists.

 

The first one is hard enough, the second is even harder. You'll also need considerable C knowledge, and a lot of time.

 

Have fun

[albertlee]

Yes' date=' but you need to know how to do 2 things:

1) Alter the BSD kernel - i.e. you need to know how the kernel works in order to modify it in the first place.

2) Reverse engineer the card to develop the modules if no existing API documentation exists.

 

The first one is hard enough, the second is even harder. You'll also need considerable C knowledge, and a lot of time.

 

Have fun [/quote']

 

For the first one, I know where can I start....but for the second one, do I only need to know C language? or what else do I need to learn in order to develop the modules?

[Dave]

I'd think C is the only thing you need to know, but you might need to know a bit of assembly. Not 100% sure about that though, not seen the BSD kernel source.

[albertlee]

How long does it take for the whole procedure? does any one have done this before?

 

Albert

[Cohen]

That depends, how good is your C?

[Dave]

And how good are you at reverse engineering hardware?

[albertlee]

well, I am a java programmer, and c language is analogical to java....so it would not take so long to learn c........

[Dave]

Hmm. It's quite a bit different to Java: for one, the memory management is left entirely to you, and so you have to deal with things like pointers. That, and numerous other differences.

[admiral_ju00]

Depending on the hardware, but when writing drivers for any system, in most cases it is crucial to have a spec book from the manufacturer for that particular device - or rather the chip that's on it.

[albertlee]

I think maybe I need just some kernel configuration maybe.....

Can any body tell me what kind of problem it is according to the below message when I insert my card....

 

Card bus 0: <network> at device 0.0 (no driver attached)

cbb0: cardbus card activation failed

 

 

Albert

[Cohen]

Can any body tell me what kind of problem it is according to the below message when I insert my card....

 

Card bus 0: <network> at device 0.0 (no driver attached)

cbb0: cardbus card activation failed

 

No driver.

[albertlee]

So, any suggestion on the solution for this? because I cant go on Internet without this one fixed.......

 

Albert

[LuTze]

Write a driver. Or fine one on the manufacturers website if you're very, very lucky.