8.16.2008

I've tried to find the differences between the contexts of calling openfirmware()
from OF_write()/OF_read() and OF_peer(), but I found none. It's not possible
to break into the fwentry() call from openfirmware(), since it always results in
spinlock corrupt crash.  I've tried to insert the call to decr_init() into several
boot subsystems, it always ended with the same crash, even before the VM init.
I've also called the OF_peer() at the very beginning of OF_write() to see if it's
possible to execute it at the very early stage of the boot, before the KDB entry.
It crashed. I've also tried to switch off the decr_init() call in the cpu_starup() and the system passed several following subsystems to subsystem 3000000 (or so) and crashed in the same way it does with decr_init().
I've inspected what does the ofw_stack() function do, but it only copies the current call stack to the firmware stack located in locore.S. This call was added in OF_read()/write() to make them work on Efika. Now, I can guess it's something with what could have change in p4 FBSD vs FBSD 6.x, since the patch was for that version. I'll try to apply the patch to version 6.x. Also, I'll have a look at the NetBSD source. I really don't understand, why it does work work the OF_read()/OF_write() and does not for OF_peer(), since those calls are so similar.

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