[LinuxBIOS] Loading "other" OS's?

[Goodrich,Steven]

I work on AMD's Geode processors -- in the BIOS group -- and I'd like to
know if LinuxBIOS can meet our needs for loading other Operating Systems
(Windows CE) in addition to Linux.  Can anyone tell me how I'd load a
WinCE image using LinuxBIOS as the loader?

Thanks!

-- Steve G.

Steve Goodrich ([e-mail] 
)
Advanced Micro Devices, Inc.
1351 S. Sunset Street
Mail Stop 83-36
Longmont, CO  80501
303-774-5129    (fax: [phone])
http://www.amd.com/embeddedprocessors

[Stefan Reinauer]

* Goodrich,Steven  [060427 15:41]:
> I work on AMD's Geode processors -- in the BIOS group -- and I'd like to know
> if LinuxBIOS can meet our needs for loading other Operating Systems (Windows
> CE) in addition to Linux.  Can anyone tell me how I'd load a WinCE image using
> LinuxBIOS as the loader?

I haven't looked at Win CE in particular, but most "other" operating
systems can be booted with a relatively low effort. It just has not been
standardized yet.

Stefan

[Richard Smith]

On 4/27/06, Goodrich,Steven  wrote:
> I work on AMD's Geode processors -- in the BIOS group -- and I'd like to
> know if LinuxBIOS can meet our needs for loading other Operating Systems
> (Windows CE) in addition to Linux.  Can anyone tell me how I'd load a WinCE
> image using LinuxBIOS as the loader?

Thats good to see that you are looking our way.

Its really going to depend on what kind of Legacy BIOS services WinCE
depends on.  I know CE is somewhat cross platform.  Does it depend on
legacy BIOS services?

If so then:

Have a look at ADLO on the wiki under payloads.  Using ADLO+bochs bios
you should be able to provide an enviroment that is close to what the
CE loader would expect.

Using ADLO+Bochs win2k has been sucessfully loaded and I've used it to
init several different video cards and run LILO. (Never tried GRUB)

All of this however was done under V1.  Nobody has tried to use ADLO
under V2.  Porting it over however should be trivial since its just a
payload.  No one has needed it yet I guess.

The copy of Bochs BIOS included with ADLO is really old and could
probally use an update.  I'm sure many more bios services have been
added.  If you update the Bochs BIOS you will have to change the IDE
routines.  They work ok for the "emulated" ide but not when you run
them on real hardware.    I don't remember offhand what the exact
changes were but they were not too complicated.

If not:

You will need to create/convert your winCE image into an ELF image. 
An elf image payload will just load and run.

I guess a hybird solution might be to load FILO as the payload and
extend FILO to be able to grok WinCE images.  Is the structure of the
WinCE image known?

[Ronald G Minnich]

Richard Smith wrote:
> Its really going to depend on what kind of Legacy BIOS services WinCE
> depends on.  I know CE is somewhat cross platform.  Does it depend on
> legacy BIOS services?

I know that someobody was booting CE years ago under linuxbios. Hamish? 
Was that you?

I don't think they needed ADLO.
> You will need to create/convert your winCE image into an ELF image. 
> An elf image payload will just load and run.

we might consider adding a handler for CE binaries. I'm already thinking 
of adding one for Plan 9 a.out anyway.

ron