This is not a good solution for all applications. As there has to be some chip to boot the machine off (ie the bios) it would be easiest if this was large enough. Sometimes you may want to use the ide bus (and CF is PIO only). And the other issue is how to get Linux into a standard BIOS chip at all.
> > Question - why is everyone so hung up on getting everything inside the actual "BIOS" >chip? > > This clearly creates problems, especially when using motherboards based on >"standard" PC requirements. > > A simple PC BIOS Flash chip is now very cheap. Why not settle for a target of:- > > 1) Replacing BIOS with a LinuxBIOS in the smallest space possible, ie cheapest >common flash chip. > 2) Using Compact Flash (CF), or other similar technologies, placed on the IDE bus >that mimics a standard disk drive. > > As I understand it 1) is pretty much done. 2) May have been done but believe there >is probably more support needed for trimming standard kernel + necessary >driver/support modules to fit into smallest/cheapest CF devices. > > Am I alone in this? > > Regards, > > Nick Jarmany > > -----Original Message----- > From: Ian [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]] > Sent: 08 February 2002 02:15 > To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] > Cc: [EMAIL PROTECTED] > Subject: Re: Questions > > > > The nice thing is that right now this is our big problem. You have to climb > > an awfully long ways up hill to get this far. > > > > And this is only a problem on machines designed for general purpose > > uses. Embedded systems have larger ROM chips so can do more. > > Yes, you guys have done an awesome job ... and is a privelege to be able > to argue about something as cool as this :-) [seriously!] > > > > I really want to find out what the rom situation is with AMD760 MPX > > chipset. If I read it right this is the first non-intel system with > > LPC only support. Which makes large roms much more practical. But > > I still might be reading the situation wrong. > What's LPC? A replacement for DIP32? Actually, I was dumb-struck when > I discovered that my new ASUS board has no ISA slots :-( All PCI ... > > > > >
