[Bug 273705] default device.hints prevents booting on modern hardware

https://bugs.freebsd.org/bugzilla/show_bug.cgi?id=273705

            Bug ID: 273705
           Summary: default device.hints prevents booting on modern
                    hardware
           Product: Base System
           Version: 14.0-CURRENT
          Hardware: amd64
                OS: Any
            Status: New
          Severity: Affects Some People
          Priority: ---
         Component: conf
          Assignee: bugs@FreeBSD.org
          Reporter: freebsd@darkain.com

/boot/device.hints by default contains information for scanning very old legacy
hardware, such as floppy disk controllers and the ISA bus. One of these items
is also the old AT keyboard interface via the ISA bus.

On modern hardware such as the Steam Deck, these legacy interfaces no longer
exist, preventing FreeBSD from booting properly. Commenting the lines out in
the file allows it to boot properly.

However, it is only a matter of time until more and more systems drop these
legacy interfaces, the Steam Deck is just one of, if not the first device that
we've seen this on.

At least on AMD64, I think it may be time to remove these references to ISA bus
scanning, as its causing real issues with the boot process.

---

And before anyone jumps in with some harsh comment about testing FreeBSD on the
Steam Deck because it is a "game console" - the hardware inside is essentially
an AMD APU based laptop. It acts and functions almost identically to any other
laptop device. The only major difference is the physical form factor. The
changes seen on this device to remove legacy interfaces from the APU most
likely will also hit mainline APUs before long, so in my opinion it is better
to tackle this now rather than later.

---

Reference:
https://wiki.freebsd.org/Laptops/Steam_Deck

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