> On Wed, 29 Mar 2000, Mike Smith wrote:
> > Yeep. You don't know Fra Dolcini, do you? That looks like a Really
> > Unpleasant Undertaking. 8(
>
> It's getting there. Also SiS is now a supporter. Long term, we may see
> motherboards specifically designed for the OSS community, with real docs
> yet. Also, I can't see any way to get to 3-second reboot (one of the
> things we need) given the stupid way BIOSes work. PXE is not an answer.
Having a chipset vendor onside isn't a bad thing, for sure, and I can see
where the current design of PC BIOS code wouldn't help. One thing that
puzzles me though is why you want to stick with the PC BIOS...
> > cluster hardware over for a pile of IA64 boxes just yet, but it strikes
> > me that it'd be easier just to write a userland flash updater than to
> > rewrite the BIOS from scratch. 8)
>
> You haven't look at how intel designs and documents some of their
> motherboards, particularly the L440GX+. They won't tell people what they
> need to know to update flash on this one. Result: you have to boot DOS to
> upgrade flash. Stupid of them.
Er, I have, which is why I was observing that what you're trying to do on
the larger scale is just a bit masochistic.
> Also, there are an amazing number of advantages to having a real OS in the
> flash. Once you start thinking about it, it becomes hard to live without.
I'd prefer real firmware, actually. OF isn't all that bad, and I seem to
recall that Parag Patel is porting it to run on the L440GX+.
--
\\ Give a man a fish, and you feed him for a day. \\ Mike Smith
\\ Tell him he should learn how to fish himself, \\ [EMAIL PROTECTED]
\\ and he'll hate you for a lifetime. \\ [EMAIL PROTECTED]
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