On Wed, Mar 16, 2005 at 07:41:25AM -0500, Kevin O'Connor wrote: > On Tue, Mar 15, 2005 at 10:57:56AM +0100, Peter Stuge wrote: > > "BIOS" is quickly getting obsolete.. Plus LinuxBIOS as of now doesn't > > do much in the traditional BIOS sense; there are no callbacks, by > > design. It's a mainboard firmware rather than a BIOS. That's actually > > pretty good, "mainboard firmware" - but then I'm back at the original > > problem; what to call the non-payload part. Core? Hardware init? > > I think the term "BIOS" means different things to different people. > Some think of it as the POST stage - which is what LinuxBIOS > replaces. Others would associate it with the old DOS callbacks (as > you did). And yet others think of the menu screen in a COTS BIOS > where boot options can be set.
Right. Are there more fundamental blocks in a classic BIOS that I can't think of? - Hardware init controlled by battery-backed NVRAM LinuxBIOS does this but it is instead controlled by compile-time options. What is the desired development of this part? - Boot process controlled by NVRAM LinuxBIOS does this too, by loading a payload, and this is also controlled by compile-time options. What is the desired development of this part? - Legacy services, and the only way BIOS is visible after OS loads LinuxBIOS does not, and should not, ever, do this. Right? I'm not saying a LinuxBIOS firmware image cannot have callbacks, but they probably shouldn't be to this project, but rather, as Ron says, to the Linux kernel itself. I keep making this distinctions since we will not start developing the kernel "inside" LinuxBIOS, but a firmware image will instead be a marriage between LinuxBIOS parts and kernel parts. > I wonder if the pain of changing names would be worth preventing the > perpetual misunderstanding that the current name creates. Right. Perhaps it will. > LinuxBIOS right now has nothing to do with Linux. The misconception > that Linux is in the firmware or that the firmware was derived from > Linux comes up frequently. > (See one of the replies in this thread..) Right. > Interestingly, Linux is a trademarked term. If a manufacture ever > started shipping LinuxBIOS, they'd need to put the little blurb > about "Linux is a trademark owned by Linus Torvalds" in their > promotional material -- even though Linus and Linux have nothing to > do with the product. This is also a reason to change the name. And a pretty good one IMHO. > Also, if LinuxBIOS+ADLO ever matures, one could get in the very > awkward position of trying to explain to end users that they're > really running Windows and not Linux. :-) Yup. //Peter _______________________________________________ LinuxBIOS mailing list [email protected] http://www.openbios.org/mailman/listinfo/linuxbios
