OS/2, eCS & ArcaOS - Technical > Programming
Closed source parts of eComStation
Michaelhz:
--- Quote from: Doug Bissett on January 16, 2014, 06:28:05 am ---After that, it is likely to be up to the users to provide drivers for the rest of the hardware that is out there. Somebody, with a little knowledge of software, and hardware, could make a nice hobby of making the drivers, once they figure out how to do it (apparently documented, in some detail).
--- End quote ---
Most probably these volunteers need access to the DDK, which is not available online. So it is hard for "hobby-programmers" to provide code for device drivers or even experiment with the existing code.
Martin Iturbide:
--- Quote from: Michael Holzapfel on January 16, 2014, 07:31:34 am ---Most probably these volunteers need access to the DDK, which is not available online. So it is hard for "hobby-programmers" to provide code for device drivers or even experiment with the existing code.
--- End quote ---
You are right, but it is also good to remember that anybody that has eCS has the Developer Kit on the CD#2.
About the "IBM Device Driver Development Kit 2004" (different kit), I got permission from IBM to repost all the documentation on the EDM/2 (sorry but I still do not finish that migration). The sad thing is the license that the Device Driver Developer Kit has. It has a license that does not allow open source derivative work. But there is also a good thing, we have a lot of open source drivers that can be used as a templates.
It will be a good thing if someone can pin point me to the programs that are required to create drivers that came from the "Device Driver Developer kit" CD and have no replacement.
Do we still require the old Microsoft C to compile drivers? any thoughts?
Michaelhz:
--- Quote from: Martin Iturbide on January 16, 2014, 01:28:09 pm ---Do we still require the old Microsoft C to compile drivers? any thoughts?
--- End quote ---
The recent device drivers require openwatcom compiler (e.q. os2ahci), but of course are still depending on DDK and Toolkit.
Pete:
Hi All
Just to emphasize Dougs point about connectivity problems.
I recently purchased a 2nd user Dell E5500 laptop.
I installed eCS 2.2 beta 2 on it.
Bad move as I then found that there was no chance of getting the touchpad to work - who wants to carry an extra mouse around with them? - and even less chance of getting the wired or wireless nic work.
The wired nic is a broadcom netxtreme gigabit device that is too new to work with ye ancient b57.os2 nic driver and I could not, despite a lot of help from Doug and others, get genmac to work with the Windows 2K/XP drivers available.
The comments about trying genmac apply to the wireless nic, a Dell 1510 Wireless-N (made by Broadcom), as well as the wired nic.
I did email Broadcom and politely ask if there was any chance of them releasing the source code for the b57.os2 driver as it would be a good starting point in creating a native os/2 driver for current broadcom wired nics. Their response was a simple reply: "No support os/2". Thank You, Broadcom - I'll add you to my "hardware to be avoided" list.
So, I have a nice laptop with an eCS 2.2 install, no touchpad and no connectivity.
Solution options:-
1] Keep laptop and forget using eCS on it; Not an option as I bought a laptop so that I can carry on working if my wife wants to go to bed - our home office takes up a little bedroom space....
2] Sell laptop for close to what I paid for it and find an alternative laptop that *may* work.
3] However, I do not plan on spending lots of time buying and selling laptops in order to find something that works - and I'd rather have something reasonably current rather than a 10 year old laptop.
As you can guess from the fact that I asked broadcom for the b57.os2 source code I could have been interested in developing a wired nic driver.
What I find totally off putting is the amount of time I would need to spend getting to grips with the tools required for such development. It seems that I would not only have to relearn "c" - not a huge task in itself as my usual programming language is pascal which is closely related to "c" - but I would also have to discover what compiler and toolset is required and learn how to use them.
Most off putting.
Why do drivers need to be written in "c"?
What compiler is required?
What toolset is required?
How long will it take to get to grips with this development system bearing in mind that I'd probably only have, at most, 2 hours a day for 3 or 4 days in the week? - I suspect that by the time I got a working driver built the hardware would be obsolete...
I really could not see any obvious answers to the questions in 3] so have opted for 2]
If I was actually earning by building a nic driver I would be able to spend a little more time on the project but would still only manage between 16 to 20 hours a week - I just have too many other things going on in my life :-)
Regards
Pete
Eugene Gorbunoff:
To Pete
* touchpad - did you tried disable and enable it again using Fn keys?
* WiFi - the users of Thinkpad apply patched BIOS to remove White list and insert supported Intel 4965AGN adapter.
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