Bill Arbaugh wrote:
> Take a look at blob (the boot loader for the LART). It's designed for a
> SA-1100 based LART board, but we've managed to port it to a SA-110
> (EBSA-285 board). We still have a few IO issues to resolve, but we're
> planning on releasing it this summer at the latest
> Bari Ari wrote:
>
>> Has anyone worked on a LinuxBIOS for other than x86 and Alpha yet?
>>
>> We're planning on a version for StrongARM and Xscale instead of using the
>> Angel booter since there is now a nice drop-in Northbridge. A Mips
>> processor version will probably be our next candidate.
>>
>> Any input?
>
I understand that the initial goal of LinuxBIOS was for a much needed
replacement of the legacy x86 BIOS for clustering applications since the
legacy BIOS was too impractical, inadequate, costly and closed source.
Since then embedded applications have found LinuxBIOS to be a better
solution than a legacy BIOS. The ability to support an OS like M$ (that
sometimes we are forced into using by a customer) with LinuxBIOS has
also found interest.
The majority of LinuxBIOS development to date has been for x86, followed
by the Alpha. I am now wondering how far LinuxBIOS will extend to for
other processors. For highest Gips and Gflops per watt, ARM and Mips
based machines are leading the pack. It makes sense to me to take
advantage of the common structure, open source and modularity that
LinuxBIOS is now evolving to for other x86. Some of my current interest
is for very dense clustering applications and Internet Appliances that
are all headless. LinuxBIOS is the only practical solution to manage and
update a dense cluster or a remote appliance possibly half a world away
from the administrator.
I'm familiar with boot loaders such as Angel and Blob for StrongArm as
well as Arc for Mips. RedBoot at the bootloader level offers another
solution for multiplatform support. Not all of these however are
released under GPL.
How far will LinuxBIOS go to support a wider range of platforms? Should
legacy support for an OS that relies on it be a future option? How much
sense does it now make with RedBoot being available? Any input,
thoughts, rants or flames?
Bari
