From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Received: from mailserv2.iuinc.com (qmailr@mailserv2.iuinc.com [206.245.164.55]) by puffin.external.hp.com (8.8.7/8.8.7) with SMTP id JAA21618 for ; Fri, 22 Oct 1999 09:50:47 -0600 From: Helge Deller To: parisc-linux@thepuffingroup.com, Alex deVries , frowand@cup.hp.com Subject: Re: [parisc-linux] Boot messages from C3000 console Date: Fri, 22 Oct 1999 17:15:02 +0200 Content-Type: text/plain Cc: Paul Bame References: MIME-Version: 1.0 Message-Id: <99102217512801.00256@P100> List-ID: Am Fri, 22 Oct 1999 schrieb Alex deVries: > On Thu, 21 Oct 1999, Frank Rowand wrote: > > Ok, tirade mode off. This is where my newbie status becomes apparent. Please > > excuse any foot in mouth here. I looked at the Puffin web page and didn't > > notice anything about the process of making sure that code that is submitted > > has some minimal level of quality. Is it just a matter of the community > > applying peer pressure? > > In fact, it's *ALL* about the community applying pressure. > > If the code in head.S is a bit rough, remember that it was just about the > first PA-RISC assembler that Helge or Philipp had ever written, so do keep > that in mind. Also, at the start of the project, there was a very > conscious effort to only be concerned with 1.1 code. It doesn't surprise > me in the least that it's not 2.0 compliant. > > I agree that the code is unreadable though; I've simply passed it off on > not being able to understand parisc assembler well enough. > > We'd all appreciate it if you could commit appropriate changes to make the > code clearer. > > - Alex Thanks Alex, Yes, we all know that the boot-loader really needs a complete clean-up, and as it looks like Iīm the maintainer of the bootloader. Itīs really funny to see people from HP talking to the list and saying somthing about code-quality, but only as a little reminder: When I wrote the bootloader I had no documentation on bootloading from HP at all, no knowledge of parisc and got it only working with trial & error methods in day and night-sessions. More, itīs first goal was to get at least a kernel booted so that the real kernel-development could start. (See my messages in the commits) The end of this all was this really ugly bootloader with many until now unused enhancements (ELF-loader and ramdisk-support) which can be easily removed. More I think there are currently MUCH MORE IMPORTANT things to be fixed in the kernel than beautifying a (mostly) working bootloader which will be completely rewritten in the future. When time has come and we have clean code to read filesystems like LIF and HFS, then this can be easily integrated into a completely rewritten PALO (PArisc-LOader). But currently I have nearly no time at all (as many others on this list), so if anyone has time to fix things, beautify the code and send me patches or enhancements I really would like to integrate them at once. SO: PLEASE donīt talk about quality of source code (we all know, that the bootloader is bad!) , just send patches !!!!! NB: It seems, that many people wants to talk about this over and over again. All this was already said some weeks ago..... Helge Deller.