On Mon, Dec 12, 2011 at 11:53 PM, David Hendricks <dhend...@google.com> wrote: > On Sun, Dec 11, 2011 at 8:47 AM, Fred . <eldman...@gmail.com> wrote: >> >> > The ability for SeaBIOS to launch a "setup program" is already present >> > - it just requires the creation of this setup program. Several >> > coreboot payloads already have some menu drawing code, so this >> > shouldn't be too difficult. Frankly though, there isn't much to >> > configure (and that is a good thing). >> > >> >> * Competition have password protection. SeaBIOS does not. >> > >> > Again - this is part of the "setup program" - there is nothing in >> > SeaBIOS to protect. >> The BIOS of the competition have two types of passwords. >> One to boot the system and one to access the setup screen. >> Password for bootup has nothing todo with the "setup program". >> Since there is currently no such setup program, the initial >> implementation for a bootup password could use a password configured >> at compile-time. > > > I think it's useful to step back and look at it in a different light. The > "competition" follows a very different usage model than coreboot and > SeaBIOS; Many commercial BIOS products are essentially OSes in themselves, > which has historically been considered a bad thing in the coreboot community > and by extension the SeaBIOS community. Much of the competition and also SeaBIOS is modular. So you can enable/disable features and modules to make it heavier/lighter depending on needs through configuration at compile-time.
> From that perspective, it doesn't make much sense for SeaBIOS to have a boot > password when every modern OS has a robust authentication mechanism already. > > (you have some good ideas, but keep in mind many people simply want SeaBIOS > to do its job and get out of the way) A BIOS password would add an additional line of defense and protect against booting from a removable device such as CD or USB. An OS password would not protect against booting from removable media. Adding password support would probably be pretty trivial. > >> > >> >> * SeaBIOS supports 32-bit PCI. It should support 64-bit PCI. >> > >> > I'm not sure what you mean here. >> I've read that SeaBIOS supports 32-bit PCI. >> http://www.seabios.org/Releases#SeaBIOS_0.5.1 >> PCI also have 64-bit. >> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conventional_PCI#64-bit_PCI > > > 64-bit PCI is actually obsolete. It was used for a period in server > platforms, but has been supplanted by PCI Express. > > David Hendricks (dhendrix) > Systems Software Engineer, Google Inc. Indeed. But 32-bit PCI is also obsolete, yet it is implemented in SeaBIOS. So 64-bit PCI should be added to a not-yet-implemented list or a low-priority list and then if anyone wants to work on it, they may do so. Since we already have support for 32-bit PCI, then it would be great if 64-bit PCI support could be added if it perhaps only require a slight modification to the existing code. _______________________________________________ SeaBIOS mailing list SeaBIOS@seabios.org http://www.seabios.org/mailman/listinfo/seabios