Messages in this thread |  | | Date | Mon, 5 May 2003 19:52:26 -0400 (EDT) | From | Adam Sulmicki <> | Subject | Re: about bios |
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> This is why, even though Linux does not use the BIOS at any point after > booting, some chipset setup code is still required and therefore you > can't just burn a Linux kernel into flash and start it directly (there > is a project called LinuxBIOS that was working on a replacement BIOS for > some common chipsets, intended for embedded systems).
'was working'? The project is alive and well.
It is much more than just embedded systems. In fact with recent addition of legacy bios support we are able to boot other operating systems (BSD, Win, etc). Being able to boot Windows provides easy migration patch to Linux :-)
By the way. Yes you can burn the linux kernel into flash (together with linuxBIOS) and boot it this way. But given that many motherboards limit your flash size to 256KiB you probably want to put the kernel on the CompactFlash over ide nevertheless. Interestingly enough if not this size limit we might have ended up using Linux Kernel as hardware initalizator to some degree.
<shameless plug> In fact we are presenting a paper on LinuxBIOS booting other operating systems this summer during Usenix 03. </shameless plug>
Adam
-- Adam Sulmicki http://www.eax.com The Supreme Headquarters of the 32 bit registers
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