On 09.02.2008 22:34, Brendan Trotter wrote:
On 2/9/08, ron minnich rminnich@gmail.com wrote:
I think it would be interesting to have a buildrom option for 'build EFI'.
It'd be much more interesting to have no buildrom options for payloads at all. Let the user install their own payload *after* coreboot is installed.
I think you may be confusing buildrom with coreboot. Buildrom is there to create a ROM with payload. The normal coreboot build process doesn't really care about a payload.
Why? So motherboard manufactures for a wide range of hardware (e.g. embedded, desktop and server) can install coreboot as default on all motherboards.
It's better for the motherboard manufacturer, who would be freed from the hassle of deciding whether to use PC BIOS or EFI or GRUB or whatever.
It's also better for the end-user, who isn't stuck with the manufacturers choice of payload and doesn't need to get their hands dirty with compilers and compile-time configuration. If it's done right, a complete moron could safely install a pre-built payload of any description on top of pre-installed coreboot, without worrying about bricking their hardware (or stuffing up their warranty).
It is surprisingly hard to get this right with limited flash sizes of today.
There's only 2 things coreboot is missing. The first is an inbuilt "update payload from <device>" utility to make installing (and reinstalling) a payload after coreboot is installed incredibly simple (e.g. something that can easily be used by end-users who have never seen a compiler in their life and never will).
This is impossible in the general case and hard in some special cases.
The second thing that's missing is a "payload specification" (with backward compatability) that allows payloads to be written by anyone that always work reliably without any compatability problems. Without this, coreboot is too volatile for any sane third party to rely on.
Ah, the same point you already stated earlier and which was already answered.
Regards, Carl-Daniel