Messages in this thread | | | Date | Mon, 11 Oct 1999 19:37:20 -0700 (PDT) | From | Linus Torvalds <> | Subject | RE: 2.3.20 will not boot (PCI problem) |
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On Tue, 12 Oct 1999, Michael Cummins wrote: > > I bet you wish the bug reports generated from the buggy bioses problem ended > up in the BIOS manufacturer E-mail box, not yours.
Well, the thing is that even if they ended up there, they'd just shake their heads and say "tough luck". Even if they cared enough to fix the bug for newer versions of their BIOS (big if), that would still leave existing BIOSes with the bug. And while you can update the BIOS on pretty much all modern machines (that didn't use to be the case - remember EPROMs?), it's still not something most people want to do..
And yes, it's a bad circle. Because BIOSes have been buggy in this area, nobody uses them (including MS), so nobody tests them in real use, so they never get fixed, so...
This is why it's best to consider the BIOS just a glorified loader and not much more. Depend on it to set up the machine in a close to usable state, but be ready to do everything else on your own.
Linus
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