L4 device-driver framework (was Re: vk_l4 -- CVS Setup)

[Michael Hohmuth]

Farid Hajji <address@hidden> writes in l4-hurd:

> [...] We'll probably also need glue code from OSKit to drop in the
> driver framework from Michael.

To clarify:

There are two L4 device-driver frameworks that are currently in use,
neither of which is ``Michael's framework.''

- One is a port of the OSKit to L4.  It allows running OSKit
  applications on top of L4 in user mode, including applications that
  use OSKit's device drivers (which are mostly inherited from FreeBSD
  and Linux).

  It can be used to get applications up and running in short time on
  x86 machines, but it is somewhat slow, produces huge binaries (most
  of the time, the OSKit startup code links in *all* device drivers of
  a class) and is not portable (the OSKit really only runs on x86).
  Our distribution (available as part of our "l4" CVS module) includes
  a number of example programs lifted straight from the set of
  examples that came with the OSKit, including a "finger" client and a
  filesystem example.

  Here is the technical report I wrote on it:
    <URL:http://os.inf.tu-dresden.de/~hohmuth/prj/oskit-l4.ps.gz>

- The other framework is a new development that is intended to fix the
  OSKit problems I mentioned, developed mainly by Christian Helmuth
  and Lars Reuther.  This framework is intended to allow dropping the
  source code of one Linux driver inside it, recompiling, and ending
  up with a working L4 device driver.

  This framework does not use the OSKit (AFAIK), but is based on our
  new L4 environment, ``L4Env''.

  A prototype for character-device drivers exists, but hasn't been
  released yet.

  Preliminary L4Env docs:  
    <URL:http://os.inf.tu-dresden.de/L4/bib.html#l4env>
  A description of the device-driver framework (Christian's diploma
  thesis, in German only):
    <URL:http://os.inf.tu-dresden.de/~ch12/sub/diplom.ps>

  Please bug the DROPS developers concerning releasing this stuff. :-)

Michael
-- 
address@hidden, address@hidden
http://www.sax.de/~hohmuth/