Messages in this thread | | | Date | 19 Apr 1999 01:55:19 -0000 | From | thospel@mail ... | Subject | Re: Flash linux into PC bios? |
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In article <Pine.LNX.4.04.9904172013390.649-100000@berserk.demon.co.uk>, Peter Horton <pdh@colonel-panic.com> writes: > On Sat, 17 Apr 1999, Paul Jakma wrote: > >> theoretical question: >> >> what would happen if i flashed a linux kernel into the BIOS of a >> recent pc motherboard, given that the EEPROM is big enough to hold >> the kernel. >> >> would it work. the kernel already can initialise most motherboard >> chipsets, eg PIIX, VP3, so how much stuff does the bios do that the >> kernel can't? is there any really low level stuff that needs to be >> tweaked, eg memory timings, that linux couldn't do?
As a data-point, I once screwed up the bios on an ASUS P2H4 motherboard, and tried to boot linux when all the system could still do was starting a boot floppy.
The boot worked succesfully until it had to really read something from the IDE-harddisk. At that point it failed completely. I did some extra experiments with forced geometries in lilo, but to no avail.
Still, I was already quite far into the boot, and I suspect that if the IDE initialization could be done without the BIOS, it would in fact have worked.
(since it got a bit boring, a flashed a working BIOS again :-) ) -- Drive A: not responding. Formatting drive C: instead. .
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