Date: Wed, 29 Mar 2000 14:39:17 -0800 From: Mike Smith <msmith@freebsd.org> To: "Ronald G. Minnich" <rminnich@lanl.gov> Cc: hackers@freebsd.org Subject: Re: How good a job of PCI config will freebsd do? Message-ID: <200003292239.OAA01255@mass.cdrom.com> In-Reply-To: Your message of "Wed, 29 Mar 2000 14:22:56 MST." <Pine.LNX.4.20.0003291419580.2692-100000@mini.acl.lanl.gov>
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> On Wed, 29 Mar 2000, Mike Smith wrote: > > Yeep. You don't know Fra Dolcini, do you? That looks like a Really > > Unpleasant Undertaking. 8( > > It's getting there. Also SiS is now a supporter. Long term, we may see > motherboards specifically designed for the OSS community, with real docs > yet. Also, I can't see any way to get to 3-second reboot (one of the > things we need) given the stupid way BIOSes work. PXE is not an answer. Having a chipset vendor onside isn't a bad thing, for sure, and I can see where the current design of PC BIOS code wouldn't help. One thing that puzzles me though is why you want to stick with the PC BIOS... > > cluster hardware over for a pile of IA64 boxes just yet, but it strikes > > me that it'd be easier just to write a userland flash updater than to > > rewrite the BIOS from scratch. 8) > > You haven't look at how intel designs and documents some of their > motherboards, particularly the L440GX+. They won't tell people what they > need to know to update flash on this one. Result: you have to boot DOS to > upgrade flash. Stupid of them. Er, I have, which is why I was observing that what you're trying to do on the larger scale is just a bit masochistic. > Also, there are an amazing number of advantages to having a real OS in the > flash. Once you start thinking about it, it becomes hard to live without. I'd prefer real firmware, actually. OF isn't all that bad, and I seem to recall that Parag Patel is porting it to run on the L440GX+. -- \\ Give a man a fish, and you feed him for a day. \\ Mike Smith \\ Tell him he should learn how to fish himself, \\ msmith@freebsd.org \\ and he'll hate you for a lifetime. \\ msmith@cdrom.com To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-hackers" in the body of the message
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