OpenBIOS February 1998

openbios@openbios.org

33 participants
63 discussions

comments and ideas
by sboyer＠smegheads.montreal.qc.ca 19 Feb '98

19 Feb '98

Hi! first, i'd like to say that re-inventing a 'DOS' bios is a bad idea, what it does for DOS, it does well enough. what is really needed, is a a true 32bit bios for people that single boot Linux. this bios should boot directly into protected mode (this way it can load uncompressed kernels). it should be able to boot the kernel image from any IDE partition on any of the 4 disks (hda,hdb,hdc,hdd), or find the kernel on the IDE cdrom (to be able to boot directly into an install program from a linux distribution CD. and as a fallback, boot from the floppy. later versions could be made to boot from SCSI Disks. ZIPdisks, LS drive. this bios should have a setup utility, to setup things like date, time, boot order, timings, etc.. the kernel could be easily modified to support this bios, heck, make it a Makefile option (make lbios). we should keep this bios as simple as possible, a subset of the drivers allready used in the kernel distribution could be used, but not removed from the kernel, the ones in the bios would only be used for booting. this way the kernel would remain untouched (except for adding an option to the Makefile). if you really want to remake the DOS bios, go look at the bochs x86 emulator, it can boot dos from cpu's other than x86, so it must have it's own bios!!! (freebios?) Steph! -- ===================================================================== sboyer(a)smegheads.montreal.qc.ca Tel: (514)-457-6124 root(a)smegheads.montreal.qc.ca Stephane Boyer L I N U X 691 Surrey ------------------------------- Baie d'Urfe, Quebec the choice of a GNU generation. CANADA H9X-2E8 --- OpenBIOS -- http://www.linkscape.net/openbios/ openbios-request(a)linkscape.net Body: un/subscribe Problems? dcinege(a)psychosis.com

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Re: [OpenBIOS] serial console
by Benjamin Scott 19 Feb '98

19 Feb '98

Dean Gaudet wrote: > The best idea I've ever heard for a serial console on a PC is an ISA video > card that behaves like text-mode VGA only, While it would be a good idea, it has two problems: Cost and kludge. Such a thing is going to cost a good amount of bucks, being so rare, and it really is a kludge to support weirdness on IBM-PCs. > Even full screen stuff is possible: Reminds me of the old DOS DOORWAY program for BBSes. :) > Remember that ISA/PCI cards have bioses on them, and those bioses expect > to play with a video card. I have seen a system boot headless (no video at all), but yes, most software and some hardware expects to be able to play with video memory. One solution is to just not use (or fix) such hardware/software. Another is a software version of your above serial console card. Hardware and software doesn't really want to talk to a video card, just be able to write directly to video memory (and maybe play with a couple of video registers). I am fairly sure we can create a region of "video memory" from the BIOS for such stuff. We could then either attempt to convert it to serial, or just ignore it, depending on specific needs. The video registers I'm not sure about; can we hack together an emulator for them using just BIOS code, or do we need actual hardware? > Plus you've got a more reliable method of generating an NMI/reboot which > you'll absolutely need. Why? -- Ben <hawk(a)ttlc.net> --- OpenBIOS -- http://www.linkscape.net/openbios/ openbios-request(a)linkscape.net Body: un/subscribe Problems? dcinege(a)psychosis.com

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Re: [OpenBIOS] BIOS Changes...
by Benjamin Scott 19 Feb '98

19 Feb '98

Jon Torrez wrote: > Would is be possible if there were a OS interface to the BIOS that was > able to change options in real-time; without having to reboot the > machine? I suggested this in my "initial" post; we should definately have an open standard for at least querry/set operations. More difficult is having such config changes take effect without rebooting. Linux doesn't really depend on the BIOS for much after boot anyway, so changing the BIOS config won't help Linux itself during operation. DOS might benifit, but it tends to keep just enough config info in memory to screw up things. Win95 might benifit, but I think you'd also need a way to communicate such changes to the device abstraction layer (if it is even possible, Win95 is pretty horrid for things like this). I won't even bother thinking about NT. -- Ben <hawk(a)ttlc.net> --- OpenBIOS -- http://www.linkscape.net/openbios/ openbios-request(a)linkscape.net Body: un/subscribe Problems? dcinege(a)psychosis.com

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Re: [OpenBIOS] could we get better performance?
by David Woodhouse 19 Feb '98

19 Feb '98

johnl(a)meer.net said: > I'm curious what effect a given implementation of a BIOS has on system > performance. From what I understand (and I understand only a little > about the BIOS), DOS et al. use the BIOS functions much more than > Linux, which may just use them to boot and then leave the BIOS > functionality behind and use its own drivers. I suspect that the main performance increase would be under DOS and Windows, yes. Take a look at http://www.mrbios.com/proof.htm for an idea of what we're aiming at there. > Is performance affected more by the particular settings that the BIOS > can make (memory access, etc.) that would change performance? Under Linux, this will be the major factor - we can offer all the more esoteric settings that other BIOSes don't support, so we can eke a little more out of the beast here too. ---- ---- ---- David Woodhouse, Robinson College, CB3 9AN, England. (+44) 0976 658355 Dave(a)imladris.demon.co.uk http://dwmw2.robinson.cam.ac.uk finger pgp(a)dwmw2.robinson.cam.ac.uk for PGP key. --- OpenBIOS -- http://www.linkscape.net/openbios/ openbios-request(a)linkscape.net Body: un/subscribe Problems? dcinege(a)psychosis.com

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Testing Platforms
by Chris Arguin 18 Feb '98

18 Feb '98

We should probably start paying attention to what chipsets we have, so that we don't have two people going off and implementing the same one twice. If you want, I can keep track of that list. With any luck, we will have a fair amount of variety of platforms to develop and test on. I've got a ASUS P55TP4N motherboard, which is a single Pentium MB with the Intel 430fx chipset. Currently it has an Award BIOS and a Symlogic SCSI BIOS. The Intel 430fx chipset is a 82437 System Controller, 82438 Data Paths, and a PIIX IDE+ISA interface. -- Chris Arguin | "...All we had were Zeros and Ones -- And Chris.Arguin(a)unh.edu | sometimes we didn't even have Ones." +--------------+ - Dilbert, by Scott Adams http://leonardo.sr.unh.edu/arguin/home.html | --- OpenBIOS -- http://www.linkscape.net/openbios/ openbios-request(a)linkscape.net Body: un/subscribe Problems? dcinege(a)psychosis.com

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Re: [OpenBIOS] BIOS call guides?
by Pavel Machek 18 Feb '98

18 Feb '98

Hi! > > > If I'm gonna start to think about coding, I have to know what to > > > code :) > > > > Do you want to write it in assembly or in C? How are you going to deal > > with 32 bit code? > > I'd suggest that the bios switches to protected mode in a very early > state. This would allow to develop most of the code (except the setup > code) in C, which is sure what we want (At least I think so) Hmm. But int xx interfaces *still* need to be in 16-bit assembly. Still, it might be nice to provide description "how to call this from 32-bit prot mode", i.e. specification saying: BIOS can be called iff CS contains selector with base = 0xf0000 ... > Do we want to support an Award compatible bios which has 16bit calls > or do we want to save up the space to implement newer features? You *must* have int xx calls, which are 16bit, or dos will not boot. -- I'm really pavel(a)atrey.karlin.mff.cuni.cz. Pavel Look at http://atrey.karlin.mff.cuni.cz/~pavel/ ;-). --- OpenBIOS -- http://www.linkscape.net/openbios/ openbios-request(a)linkscape.net Body: un/subscribe Problems? dcinege(a)psychosis.com

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AMI BIOS execution order
by Chris Arguin 18 Feb '98

18 Feb '98

I ran across a web page that is supposedly a list of what some AMI BIOS does at startup. It seems to be fairly complete and may be useful to give us an idea of the normal order of execution. http://www.msi-computer.de/faq/A.HTM -- Chris Arguin | "...All we had were Zeros and Ones -- And Chris.Arguin(a)unh.edu | sometimes we didn't even have Ones." +--------------+ - Dilbert, by Scott Adams http://leonardo.sr.unh.edu/arguin/home.html | --- OpenBIOS -- http://www.linkscape.net/openbios/ openbios-request(a)linkscape.net Body: un/subscribe Problems? dcinege(a)psychosis.com

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Re: [OpenBIOS] Re: Some Questions and ideas for gnu-bios
by John McPherson 18 Feb '98

18 Feb '98

-----Original Message----- From: Pavel Machek <pavel(a)elf.ucw.cz> Cc: openbios(a)linkscape.net Date: Wednesday, February 18, 1998 8:46 AM Subject: [OpenBIOS] Re: Some Questions and ideas for gnu-bios > >Under linux, bios is not used (well, with exceptions of APM). > >Other 'systems' switch into v86 mode to call bios functions. This goes into my major question. I would like to put the Linux kernel itself in the flash of one of my older fast 486 machines - I hope to make it a router, and I am having trouble with the hard drive in that box - if the kernel is in flash, and maybe most of a ramdisk load, all I need is a floppy with a few config options. Perhaps one could make use of the CMOS to store simple config items. If Linux doesn't use the BIOS at all, what initializations if any need to be done to the system at POST to assign PNP/PCI IRQ settings, test the memory, keyboard, etc. What _exactly_ does the BIOS do to a system when it starts? ---jmc --- OpenBIOS -- http://www.linkscape.net/openbios/ openbios-request(a)linkscape.net Body: un/subscribe Problems? dcinege(a)psychosis.com

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ANNOUNCE: OpenBIOS - Freeware x86 BIOS iniatitive
by Dave Cinege 18 Feb '98

18 Feb '98

Some discussion about the possibility of a freeware 'GNU' BIOS was casually mentioned on the Linux kernel mailing list last week. Talk about it escalated, and a mailing list was quickly formed. After a few more days of ideas, it seems like a very good possibility and some people just hell bent on getting started. What we are looking for now are people with a high degree of knowledge about the low-level workings of the x86 PC architecture, and real mode programming experience. Please join the mailing list and offer what help you can. Also understand that many Linux people are involved with this, but the purpose is a COMPLETE BIOS replacement for use with all Intel x86 OS's, not just some new boot loader. To subscribe to the OpenBIOS Mailing list, write an email To: openbios-request(a)linkscape.net Subject [leave blank!] subscribe [in the body] It is a majordomo managed list. Feel free to use extended MD commands as needed. OpenBIOS web pages: (DO NOT expect to find much here yet!) http://www.linkscape.net/openbios/ http://www.freiburg.linux.de/OpenBIOS/ --- OpenBIOS -- http://www.linkscape.net/openbios/ openbios-request(a)linkscape.net Body: un/subscribe Problems? dcinege(a)psychosis.com

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Re: [OpenBIOS] ASM/C and 16/32 bit questions.
by David Woodhouse 18 Feb '98

18 Feb '98

dcinege(a)fuckthejunkmailers.org said: > When I think 32-bit in the BIOS, to me that means being able to deal > with larger drives, and booting partitions with a huge sector offset. > (corrections please) Thank God for that - I was getting worried there! We want that kind of functionality, definitely. When I think 32-bit, that means "protected mode" - 32-bit code and data, rather than the old real mode 16-bit segment/offset methods. This would have meant that it wouldn't be compatible with legacy operating systems such as DOS and Windows 95 which run at least partly in real mode, using the real mode interrupts into the BIOS. (Unless we provided such 16-bit routines side-by-side with the 32-bit ones, effectively doubling the size of our function code) We can provide big drive support and other such niceties with real mode code - a normal BIOS generally has very little protected mode code AFAIK, although it is required to provide routines for copying data to/from high memory, and for switching into protected mode. ---- ---- ---- David Woodhouse, Robinson College, CB3 9AN, England. (+44) 0976 658355 Dave(a)imladris.demon.co.uk http://dwmw2.robinson.cam.ac.uk finger pgp(a)dwmw2.robinson.cam.ac.uk for PGP key. --- OpenBIOS -- http://www.linkscape.net/openbios/ openbios-request(a)linkscape.net Body: un/subscribe Problems? dcinege(a)psychosis.com

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