Device enumeration

[Alok Barsode]

Hi,
I am a newbie working on FreeBSD 4.10.

I am a bit confused between  i386/conf/GENERIC and
i386/conf/GENERIC.hints. 

Does a device driver's probe/attach routine is invoked
when a enty is made for it in the GENERIC file? 
for example an enty in the GENERIC file will be : 
device  nge    # NatSemi DP83820 gigabit Ethernet  
Does the probe routine in if_nge.c invoked when the
kernel encounters the above entry? 

How can I probe/attach a device which is not
self-identifying? Like a memory mapped device? Does an
entry in the GENERIC file make sure the probe/attach
function will be called for it? 

How can I identify where in the device hierarchy is it
located? The device is not connected to any BUS. so
will it be a independent device? 

In GENERIC.hints a device's bus, port,irq are
mentioned. What is the actual purpose of doing so? is
this hard coding the values (like irqs)? what
information has to be mentioned in this file? 

I was unable to find a good document on the newbus
architecture and device enumeration.If anybody knows
of one, plz let me know. 

Thanks,
Alok.


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