From owner-freebsd-hackers@FreeBSD.ORG Tue Mar 18 13:11:34 2008 Return-Path: Delivered-To: freebsd-hackers@freebsd.org Received: from mx1.freebsd.org (mx1.freebsd.org [IPv6:2001:4f8:fff6::34]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 9048D1065672 for ; Tue, 18 Mar 2008 13:11:34 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from rwatson@FreeBSD.org) Received: from cyrus.watson.org (cyrus.watson.org [209.31.154.42]) by mx1.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 6ED9D8FC13 for ; Tue, 18 Mar 2008 13:11:34 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from rwatson@FreeBSD.org) Received: from fledge.watson.org (fledge.watson.org [209.31.154.41]) by cyrus.watson.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 1889D46CA2; Tue, 18 Mar 2008 09:11:34 -0400 (EDT) Date: Tue, 18 Mar 2008 13:11:34 +0000 (GMT) From: Robert Watson X-X-Sender: robert@fledge.watson.org To: Peter Jeremy In-Reply-To: <20080318074332.GS44676@server.vk2pj.dyndns.org> Message-ID: <20080318130927.D17188@fledge.watson.org> References: <20080316122108.S44049@fledge.watson.org> <200803162313.m2GNDbvl009550@apollo.backplane.com> <3c0b01820803171243k5eb6abd3y1e1c44694c6be0f6@mail.gmail.com> <200803172016.m2HKGfjA020263@apollo.backplane.com> <20080318074332.GS44676@server.vk2pj.dyndns.org> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII; format=flowed Cc: freebsd-hackers@freebsd.org Subject: Re: Re[2]: vkernel & GSoC, some questions X-BeenThere: freebsd-hackers@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.5 Precedence: list List-Id: Technical Discussions relating to FreeBSD List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Tue, 18 Mar 2008 13:11:34 -0000 On Tue, 18 Mar 2008, Peter Jeremy wrote: >> with the BIOS, and see BIOSes then respec to a new far cleaner API. >> The >> BIOS is the stinking pile of horseshit that has held back OS development >> for the last 15 years. > > I'd go further and say that BIOSes are getting worse: Back in the AT-clone > days, you could just totally ignore the BIOS once you'd gotten the kernel > loaded. Now you _have_ to keep talking to the BIOS for things like ACPI - > but the BIOSes are still just as broken as they used to be. On Sun's Niagara (sun4v) platform, it is expected that all OS's will sit on top of the hypervisor that ships in the firmware, abstracting away countless basic hardware services behind hypercalls. Robert N M Watson Computer Laboratory University of Cambridge