Very good explanation about LinuxBIOS and Linux Kernel.
Some ideas about future FW: 1. LinuxBIOS only need to do basic things like mem and basic init like HT, and basic PCI resources allocation 2. leave other thing to tiny linux kernel. 3. Thanks to Eric for kexec. and it make linux boot linux happen.
For EFI, they could do first step too. Only use EFI PEI and very slim pci resources allocation.
OFW, do the first step? That will need bunch of code for HT and Mem init. We don't need to reinvent that for x86.
Legacy BIOS: we can use that for step 1, and we could slim Etherboot and tiny kernel on flash on MB or PCI addon card. like Etherboot replace option rom on addon/onboard nic. or put the kernel on IDE flash or HDD.
So left work: 1. for LinuxBIOS: need to make the ACPI to more complete to support Nvidia chipset, and we need ACPI to do the thing instead of SMI, and hot plug things.... 2. kexec interface, so we can load other OS, and some new OS may be loaded via EFI, so may produce one EFI layer to be used by kexec. or just another simulate interface for EFI in kexec. 3. work on Kernel, So tiny kernel could be small and boot more faster for payload. ---- that would be great for embed solution.
YH