On Tue, Apr 20, 2004 at 04:37:37PM -0700, Ian Zimmerman wrote:
Mathieu> I'd rather like to make a backup copy of my bios in another Mathieu> chip and then to cold plug this copy to work with Linuxbios.
Mathieu> Has anyone felt this worry .
Same here.
I feel that the reliance on hotplugging flash chips has limited linuxbios audience to hard-core metal hackers.
While it is obviously true that a number of people in the audience are worried about hotplugging the BIOS ROM I don't think it has a very negative impact yet - LinuxBIOS is getting closer and closer to a very stable release but in order to get there, more hard-core hackers are needed anyway to contribute support for various system components such as CPUs, chipsets etc.
Also, any BIOS software probably isn't targeted even at power users - more so at system integrators and/or retailers, who are in a much better financial position for getting "pro" BIOS tools such as a standalone programmer.
On the other hand, there's always the possibility of getting a BIOS-saviour, or even a cheaper model standalone programmer at $200. (They're usually not really good until up at $400-$500 though.)
//Peter