Hi Jun,
2007/10/7, Jun OKAJIMA okajima@digitalinfra.co.jp:
I checked the video. It looks great. Good work. But, your way limits functionality. You can use only Tiny/X and busybox and... If you use Firefox, using CD-ROM is necessary, right?
Yes, this is a good approach. You can place the Linux kernel on the BIOS and rootfs can still on the CDROM. I don't make tests but I think read from BIOS Flash (LPC = ~16.7 MB/s) is more faster than read from 48X CDROM (48 x 150KB/s = ~ 7MB/s)
So, combining your way and my way would be a right choice.
Yes, once we don't have BIOS flash more than 2MB then this combining is the right choice.
And, the problem is not only BIOS, but a firm ware of CD-ROM also. In some drives, to recognize a medium and start reading requies more than 10 sec. I mean, to start reading uses more time than booting Linux itself. To solve this, probably so-called "LinuxFirmware" would be necessary...
I need ATAPI commands like these. SET_MEDIA( media_type="CD-R", media_format="SINGLE_SESSION" ) START_SPIN( speed="MAX", wait=0) If you can send these commands in the early stage of BIOS booting, it gets more faster to start reading a medium.
Hmm, so this is the trick to get Linux booting in 10s :-) You will get best results using LinuxBIOS.
--- Okajima, Jun. Tokyo, Japan. http://www.machboot.com/
Cheers,
Alan