and will bypass transfers for more than 8k. Blocks are invalidated after
2 seconds, so removable media should not confuse the cache.
The 8k threshold is a compromise; all UFS transfers performed by
libstand are 8k or less, so large file reads thrash the cache.
However many filesystem metadata operations are also performed using
8k blocks, so using a lower threshold gives poor performance.
Those of you with an eye for cache algorithms are welcome to tell me
how badly this one sucks; you can start with the 'bcachestats' command
which will print the contents of the cache and access statistics.
filesystems.
- New 'help' command and data in the help.* files (not yet installed),
provides topic and subtopic help, indexes, etc.
- Don't crash if the user tries to set an invalid console. Be helpful
instead.
- Expand tabs (badly) on the i386 video console.
- Some minor cosmetic changes.
- Use the ISA PnP enumerator.
- Use the new linker set code, throw out the gensetdefs stuff.
- Produce an intermediate loader image that has symbols stripped, to aid
- in debugging.
- Supply ISA port access functions required for ISA PnP
- Discard large amounts of BIOS-related code in favour of the more compact
BTX vm86 interface.
- Build the loader module as ELF, although the resulting object is a.out,
make gensetdefs 32/64-bit sensitive and use a single copy of it.
- Throw away installboot, as it's no longer required.
- Use direct bcopy operations in the i386_copy module, as BTX
maps the first 16M of memory. Check operations against the
detected size of actual memory.
- Use format-independant module allocator.
- Conditionalise ISA PnP support.
- Simplify PnP enumerator interface.
- Improve module/object searching.
- Add missing depend/install targets in BTX makefiles.
- Pass the kernel environment and module data in extended bootinfo fields.
- Add a pointer to the end of the kernel + modules in bootinfo.
- Fix parsing of old-style kernel arguments.
- Move some startup code from MD to MI sections
- Add a 'copyout' and some copyout-related functions. These will be
obsoleted when BTX is available for the 386 and the kernel load
area becomes directly addressable.
- Add the ability load an arbitrary file as a module, associating
and arbitrary type string with it. This can be used eg. for loading
splash-screen images etc.
- Add KLD module dependancy infrastructure. We know how to look for
dependancies inside KLD modules, how to resolve these dependancies
and what to do if things go wrong. Only works for a.out at the
moment, due to lack of an MI ELF loader. Attach KLD module information
to loaded modules as metadata, but don't pass it to the kernel (it
can find it itself).
- Load a.out KLD modules on a page boundary. Only pad the a.out BSS
for the kernel, as it may want to throw symbols away. (We might want
to do this for KLD modules too.)
- Allow commands to be hidden from the '?' display, to avoid cluttering
it with things like 'echo'. Add 'echo'.
- Bring the 'prompt' command into line with the parser syntax.
- Fix the verbose 'ls'; it was using an uninitialised stack variable.
- Add a '-v' flag to 'lsmod' to have it display module metadata as well
(not terribly useful for the average user)
- Support a 'module searchpath' for required modules.
- The bootstrap file on i386 is now called 'loader' to permit the
/boot directory to use that name.
- Discard the old i386 pread() function, as it's replaced by
arch_readin()
- Implement a new copyin/readin interface for loading modules.
This allows the module loaders to become MI, reducing code duplication.
- Simplify the search for an image activator for the loaded kernel.
- Use the common module management code for all module metadata.
- Add an 'unload' command that throws everything away.
- Move the a.out module loader to MI code, add support for a.out
kld modules.
Submitted by: Alpha changes fixed by Doug Rabson <dfr@freebsd.org>
'three-stage' bootstrap.
There are a number of caveats with the code in its current state:
- The i386 bootstrap only supports booting from a floppy.
- The kernel and kld do not yet know how to deal with the extended
information and module summary passed in.
- PnP-based autodetection and demand loading of modules is not implemented.
- i386 ELF kernel loading is not ready yet.
- The i386 bootstrap is loaded via an ugly blockmap.
On the alpha, both net- and disk-booting (SRM console machines only) is
supported. No blockmaps are used by this code.
Obtained from: Parts from the NetBSD/i386 standalone bootstrap.
