Justin Cormack wrote:
>
> >
> > Ronald G Minnich wrote:
> > >
> > > On Mon, 4 Mar 2002, Jeff Garzik wrote:
> > >
> > > > However... why don't you add basic BIOS INT support as an option? ;-)
> > >
> > > ow. I'll let someone else do that. It makes my brain hurt SO MUCH.
> >
> > The masses will cheer your name and elevate you from Man to God, if you
> > do it, though ;-)
> >
> >
> > > when you ran the BIOS code, what did you set up in the way of cs, ds,
> > > etc.?
> > >
> > > It seems you need to have:
> > > bus,devfn in %ax
> > > cs should be: ???
> > > Code should run in 8086 mode at physical address: ??
> >
> > IIRC on ia32 the code was run in vm86 mode... which promptly started
> > hurting when nVidia put 32-bit code in their video BIOS. (noone else
> > does that, AFAIK)
>
> Surely if X does it it can be done in userspace? So it isnt a Linuxbios issue.
> I dont think adding BIOS INT support is a good idea at all. The whole idea
> is to get away from all that crap. And as you get to userspace so quickly
> you wont notice. And you can run in emulation on all platforms.
BIOS INT support is not critical for booting linux kernel from flash.
BIOS INT support -is- critical for the goal of a 100% free software BIOS
that end users may use.
So far there is no free software which does this. This is really the
last bastion of proprietary software. Free software exists for all
other usages after the BIOS boots. We have free bootloaders, free
kernels, and free userland. But no free BIOS.
So... BIOS INT -must- be supported. However, it IMO is best to keep
that separate from linuxbios. As I keep pointing out, this can (and
should!) be a separate piece of the puzzle:
linuxbios + freebios == can boot MS-DOG
"freebios" would be the piece that provides BIOS INT services, console
services, etc. If/when freebios exists, freebios users will likely
-disable- some code, such as PCI or IDE init... or anything besides
basic CPU/DRAM init. freebios would be the one that initializes the PCI
bus(es), spins up IDE drives according to spec, etc.
Of course, this is completely a pipe dream until I (or someone else)
sits down to code it. ;-)
Jeff
--
Jeff Garzik |
Building 1024 |
MandrakeSoft | Choose life.
