Mail Archives: cygwin/1999/08/24/02:27:25
Quite , to say the least.
a) NT 5.0 (Win2k) drivers are similar to NT 4.0 ones, but there are some
key differences, notably in the PnP support; moreover, the video
subsystem has changed and the IFS layer (which is not documented at
all, as you already know) has been extended quite a bit. And I left
out the whole "streaming API" concept (which I am not sure I fully
understand myself), with all of its implications on most drivers
(video, network, audio, input).This is why, e.g., Micro$oft lets you
download both DDKs.
b) Microsoft DDKs are closely linked to MSVC (by the way, the supported
version is still 5.0), with all its quirks, its calling conventions and
its extensions (see the full plethora of __declspec and #pragma
options, for example). And it's not just good old C: the NT 5.0 IFS kit
is supposed to use C++ features (notably virtual class members), and NT
5.0 WDM may use floating point code. And I didn't mention the
problems related to the absence of a C run-time library (much less a
CygWin-like one). If you _REALLY_ want to sidestep Microsoft compilers
for DDK usage, NASM might be a good candidate, even if optimizing
assembler for the new CPUs is getting harder and harder.
In short: CygWin is a (_GREAT_) porting tool, with MinGW a very good
target for "usual" applications. Using it for driver purposes looks to me,
at this stage, a waste of time; full support for all the available user
mode APIs would be a much more useful project.
Best regards to you all
Federico Bianchi
Dipartimento di Storia delle Arti
Universita` degli Studi di Pisa
p.zza S.Matteo in Soarta, 2 - 56127 Pisa (Italy)
tel. +39-050-587111 (cent.), +39-050-587224 (uff.)
fax. +39-050-580128; e-mail: <f DOT bianchi AT arte DOT unipi DOT it>
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