****** Forwarded Message Follows *******
>To: "Naushit Sakarvadia" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
>From: "Jim DiFronzo" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
>Date: Mon, 3 May 1999 09:02:16 -0600
>
>
>
>> The only bios dependency that I know of is that the bios determines how to
>> boot your OS (Linux, DOS, or whatever). It generally reads the MBR from
>> the hard disk or floppy disk to find out where the executable lives on the
>> physical media. It then loads that code to RAM and runs it. Once the
>> linux kernel is running I don't think there is much dependecy on the bios.
>>
>> This is what I believe, but I can not guarantee it.
>>
>> Brendan Simon.
>
>The bios also configures the chipset's registers to be used in this system.
>If you want to remove the bios. You will need to configure the chipset
>manually and before the OS runs. Not doing so will cause unpredictable
>results. Also do not forget to load the SMM interrupt vectors and handling
>subroutines. Currently the Pentium processor wants to jump to memory
>location 0x38000 to perform the SMM interrupt handling subroutine. If you
>do not have something there, crash. Also you'll want to make sure the you
>set the chipsets registers to not use the memory location for normal use.
>You would not want to think you have something there and overwrite with
>kernel or use space applications. I'm not sure if you can actually protect
>that section of memory, so you may want to map 38000 to a8000 and use the
>chipset register to make this read only once the subroutine has been copied
>to it.
>
>You may ask when would I ever use SMM or something like this: Anytime you
>use USB, APM, APCI, etc and most VIA and other chipsets trigger SMM every
>10ms to handle legacy USB devices, such as a keyboard, by default when an AT
>keyboard is not detected.
>
>In short, removing the BIOS may prove to be a challenging task. You would
>probably be better off not removing the BIOS, but writing your own. There
>is a GNU BIOS development project I'm sure you could leverage heavily to do
>so.
>
>Good luck and let us all know how it goes.
>
>Jim
>>
>>
>>
>> Naushit Sakarvadia wrote:
>>
>> > Hello,
>> >
>> > Can anybody tell me how much Linux Kernel is dependent on BIOS ?
>> > Till I have figure out that for PCI card/.bus it is dependent on Bios
>> > what else should
>> > I consider if I want to remove BIOS from my Single board computer?
>> >
>> > And please can anybody tell me how many SBC( single board computers )
>> > uses PCI interfaces?
>> >
>> > Please bear with my ignorance.
>> >
>> > Thanks in advance.
>> >
>> > Regards,
>> > Naushit
>>
>>
>
>
>
