Stefanos Papanicolopoulos <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes:
> Some *X?#$%# failed to warn us that they would leave the room our
> server is without electricity for two days, so I just now collected
> the mail.
>
> Anyway... I did not know XFree does actually execute the VGA BIOS.
> On the other hand, if the VGA BIOS run by XFree requires the PC BIOS
> to be present, it finds it, doesn't it? I mean, in a 'normal' PC,
> does the VGA BIOS executed by XFree 'see' the memory occupied and/or
> used by the PC BIOS?
XFree doesn't require it but it does have it as an option.
> So what happens if linuxbios maps the VGA BIOS to it's 'normal'
> location (0C000:0000) and then linux runs XFree? Can anybody
> experiment with it?
>
> Of course, there is another question: Do we want to wait for XFree
> to see any output? Do we want to wait even for Linux to see any
> output? It would be nice to see linuxbios output on our screen, but
> even then we would see half of them (You can get serial I/O much
> before you get video).
Definentily.
> But there is a catch: What do you want to use linuxbios for, and
> HOW do you want to use it? The only reason you would want your card
> up in linuxbios is that you have some kind of a 'menu' in
> linuxbios. Say a 'boot this or that' menu. If I got it right, the
> general direction in this list is 'load linux to load linux': the
> first linux (which we always know where to fetch from) has the fb
> driver to enable graphics and so you have graphics before you load
> (the *main*) linux.
>
> Personally, I would like to (also) have a 'bootloader' linuxbios,
> which does a bit more than the very basic initialization. One that
> goes as far as reading the kernel from disk (so I can flash it in a
> 128KB EEPROM). In this case, early video output is a GOOD thing. So
> it all depends on what you want...
That is a form factor that is still very much in question. But even
with a 128KB EEPROM, you can have 32KB for linuxBIOS and the rest for
an arbitrary bootloader. It is perfectly satisfactory for your
bootloader to do device initialization.
We need to find a way to shrink linux or to get a small free unix
in that 96KB. The argument is that bootloaders eventually evolve
to have most of the features of an OS so we might as well start with
a clean strategy.
There is at least one version of unix UZI that fits in 32KB, with no
ip stack, so something like 96KB is o.k. I can also see quite a bit
evolving from tiara but I don't see much of the tiara codebase as I
looked at it last surviving. It's just to specific to one particular
motherboard. What I see having is a general purpose OS that gets
compiled to include support for the current hardware of your machine.
I haven't run the experiment to see if I can get rebuild the linux
core and get it down smaller so I haven't given up on it for that
kind of form factor yet.
> BTW, what does 'IP' mean? (Ron mentioned that). I mean, besides
> 'Internet Protocol' :-)
It is short for the flawed concept of intelectual property. Trade
Secrets is a more accurate term, at least for those who worry about
protecting their IP.
Eric
