Dear coreboot folks,
As you all heard of NERF [1], Heads [2] and u-root [3], they try to get the Linux kernel into the flash ROM chip also without coreboot, by stripping down the UEFI firmware.
Trammell is going to give a talk about it at 34C3 [4], and already uses the word *LinuxBIOS* there, which is great in my opinion.
The only downside is, that LinuxBIOS is, as you all know, the former project name of coreboot.
So is everybody fine with reviving that name to figure out a way to put Linux into the flash ROM chip regarding if coreboot, UEFI parts or something else is used.
Then I’d kindly ask, that the name would be revived, and an appropriate Web site, mailing lists, and IRC channel are created. Could it be hosted on the coreboot infrastructure? Ron, Trammell, would that be ok with you?
Thanks,
Paul
[1] https://trmm.net/NERF [2] https://trmm.net/Heads [3] http://u-root.tk/ [4] https://twitter.com/qrs/status/932655856520491009
Over the last few months I discussed reviving the LinuxBIOS name with a number of folks inside and outside the coreboot community. I still pretty much own the name: for old times's sake I kept the LinuxBIOS Inc. corporation and linuxbios.org domain name.
There was a strong feeling that using the name LinuxBIOS for this new project did not make much sense, largely because we're not building a BIOS; and, also, it might confuse people with the old project or with coreboot.
After some iterations on a new name I proposed the name LinuxBoot and that seems to work for people. So we use the name LinuxBoot not linuxbios.
There are two uses of LinuxBoot today, one is Trammell's HEADS/Linuxboot work and the other is our NERF work, where NERF is LinuxBoot + u-root.
There is a linuxboot mailing list already, as well as a github.com/linuxboot organization. We'll keep the source on github and we will probably continue to use github for our web presence as well, as we do for u-root with u-root.tk.
As I said in my talk at ELC, coreboot is the preferred path for opening up firmware when that is possible. But LinuxBoot has an important role to play now for several organizations where coreboot will not be used.
And, as Paul mentions, I see LinuxBoot as useful both on coreboot (replace ramstage with Linux) and as a replacement for UEFI (since UEFI is essentially a ramstage) or even where we replace a large part of UEFI with Linux, but retain the DxeCore. There are many possible ways to implement LinuxBoot.
Thanks Paul!
ron
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Paul Menzel -
ron minnich