On Wed, 25 Aug 2004, Dave Aubin wrote:
What is your goal to want to use Linux bios? If your goal is to get It to load a Linux kernel, then try etherboot.
goodness, this question takes us back to our roots.
The fact is, the linux kernel is just about the best thing you can use to boot another kernel!
Dave, think about this: are you planning to write etherboot drivers for myrinet, quadrics, infiniband, SCI, or other new networks? How about all those ugly, complicated SCSI disk systems? If yes, you're nuts and you are going to duplicate a lot of work that Linux does better. If no, then etherboot can't even be used on our 1024-node Pink cluster (which has no Ethernet, only myrinet).
Another weird thing we've found: Linux, on faster machines with lots of network interfaces in them, boots nodes faster than etherboot! weird but true.
I think you are not looking at a big enough picture. Etherboot is fine for a lot of cases, but if you can put Linux in flash, it's a LOT better, and as the processors get faster, Linux is faster too.
ron
ron minnich rminnich@lanl.gov writes:
On Wed, 25 Aug 2004, Dave Aubin wrote:
What is your goal to want to use Linux bios? If your goal is to get It to load a Linux kernel, then try etherboot.
goodness, this question takes us back to our roots.
The fact is, the linux kernel is just about the best thing you can use to boot another kernel!
Dave, think about this: are you planning to write etherboot drivers for myrinet, quadrics, infiniband, SCI, or other new networks? How about all those ugly, complicated SCSI disk systems? If yes, you're nuts and you are going to duplicate a lot of work that Linux does better. If no, then etherboot can't even be used on our 1024-node Pink cluster (which has no Ethernet, only myrinet).
The problem is of course fitting a Linux kernel into flash. That is usually more work than just writing an etherboot driver.
I think you are not looking at a big enough picture. Etherboot is fine for a lot of cases, but if you can put Linux in flash, it's a LOT better, and as the processors get faster, Linux is faster too.
Long term Linux is certainly the way to go. Short term etherboot and filo work today and on systems with small flash chips. We are getting closer to the point where we can switch over but it is still going to be a little longer.
Eric
On 25 Aug 2004, Eric W. Biederman wrote:
Long term Linux is certainly the way to go. Short term etherboot and filo work today and on systems with small flash chips. We are getting closer to the point where we can switch over but it is still going to be a little longer.
of course, here is where EFI is our friend, as it is forcing board vendors to put on really big flash. Then we can reflash linuxbios over top of EFI :-)
ron
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ron minnich