Hi everyone.
I'm a new member, I joined the list to learn more about the Linuxbios project. A question for anyone that can point me in the right direction to information:
Q: I read everything on linuxbios.org as well as googled until i got a nosebleed, but i can't find any real world examples of linuxbios + linuxdistro setups. I am looking right now to purchase a linux bios compatable mobo based on the list from linuxbios.org to play around with, but what i was wondering is, just how can linuxbios speed up the boot process of a linux based system? Pardon my newbieness, but I have never had a bios be anything more than a fraction of the total bootup time on any linux system, so does linuxbios have the capability to litterally boot a linux system to cli login prompt of any distro within seconds or not? I realize it's a general question, assume I'm running debian base install ( no x, no desktop environment, boot staright to command line), most of the bootup process is taken up by the bootup scripts checking the hardware and starting up various services (I probably have too many and unoptimized i'm sure but thats another issue alltogether). From everything that I have read, I am understanding that basically its a faster bios that jumps to the distros bootloader when done? Or does this redefine the bootup process where the linuxbios is the bootloader and upon coming to life jumps straight to the distro kernel? If it jumps to the distro bootloader surely the time savings are a few seconds at best? If linuxbios takes over some of the bootloader functions, how does this affect a typicall install if at all?
Sorry for the overgeneralized questions, I just need a few answers here, even if vague to help me create a knowledge sandbox into which i can then drill down to proper understanding.
By the way, i read an article recently of an interview with the president of Tyan. According to the interview Tyan will be shipping all motherboards with Linuxbios. I have no idea if they are using the real deal from cvs, or forking it, or what, but goddamn that really cool stuff. I'm hoping some of the answers to my question will mean that linux on the desktop has a bright future vis a vis Tyan at least. If anyone wants a copy of it, email me and I will attach the html document - I knew they would take it down as indeed they have.
Thanks aforehand!!!!
- Rob
linuxg33k wrote:
By the way, i read an article recently of an interview with the president of Tyan. According to the interview Tyan will be shipping all motherboards with Linuxbios.
So nuff' Heres the link to the interview. Wow thats awesome. LB is about to go big time. If Tyan leads you can bet many others will follow.
http://www.digitimes.com/NewsShow/NewsSearch.asp?DocID=000000000000000000000...
Ron, surely you are part of this. He lists the US goverment as the prime reason for the switch. Whats the full scoop?
On Fri, 2004-09-10 at 08:49, Richard Smith wrote:
linuxg33k wrote:
By the way, i read an article recently of an interview with the president of Tyan. According to the interview Tyan will be shipping all motherboards with Linuxbios.
So nuff' Heres the link to the interview. Wow thats awesome. LB is about to go big time. If Tyan leads you can bet many others will follow.
http://www.digitimes.com/NewsShow/NewsSearch.asp?DocID=000000000000000000000...
Registeration required. Can you send a copy ?
Ollie
Ron, surely you are part of this. He lists the US goverment as the prime reason for the switch. Whats the full scoop?
Linuxbios mailing list Linuxbios@clustermatic.org http://www.clustermatic.org/mailman/listinfo/linuxbios
Li-Ta Lo wrote:
http://www.digitimes.com/NewsShow/NewsSearch.asp?DocID=000000000000000000000...
Registeration required. Can you send a copy ?
Really? I got that from a google search.. Worked for me w/o registration.
Try this. Scroll down and click on the link to the article works for me. This will surely wrap so rebuild the url.
http://216.239.39.104/search?q=cache:n6Te6JG-c0IJ:www.linuxforums.org/forum/...
On Fri, 10 Sep 2004, Richard Smith wrote:
So nuff' Heres the link to the interview. Wow thats awesome. LB is about to go big time. If Tyan leads you can bet many others will follow.
http://www.digitimes.com/NewsShow/NewsSearch.asp?DocID=000000000000000000000... 0002188&query=TYAN
Ron, surely you are part of this. He lists the US goverment as the prime reason for the switch. Whats the full scoop?
I think it boils down to Tyan being a very forward-thinking company. And yes, at least $30M in RFPs from LANL have gone out requiring linuxbios, and yes, a lot of companies were unable to bid due to lack of ability to provide linuxbios.
ron
On Thu, Sep 09, 2004 at 06:59:24PM -0700, linuxg33k wrote:
From everything that I have read, I am understanding that basically its a faster bios that jumps to the distros bootloader when done? Or does this redefine the bootup process where the linuxbios is the bootloader and upon coming to life jumps straight to the distro kernel? If it jumps to the distro bootloader surely the time savings are a few seconds at best? If linuxbios takes over some of the bootloader functions, how does this affect a typicall install if at all?
LinuxBIOS (plus the payload) will get you as far as loading your linux kernel. It doesn't do anything for speeding up the time from loading of kernel to launching of process 1, or the time from launching of process 1 to usability. _However_, it's actually a relatively simple process to get from jumping to the kernel to, for instance, a directfb based GUI in under 3 seconds, so those few seconds LinuxBIOS saves you can make a big, big difference.
A lot of the focus of LinuxBIOS has not been around improved boot times, which is why stuff like the EPIA-M's terrible boot time has gone unfixed (there are sleeps in there, and also it defaults to a compressed linuxbios image) but you take what you can get with free software, at least linuxbios is GPLed, so if you care enough you can fix it yourself and contribute those changes back for everyone else.
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Li-Ta Lo -
linuxbios＠mikebell.org -
linuxg33k -
Richard Smith -
Ronald G. Minnich