OpenBIOS August 2001

openbios@openbios.org

46 participants
53 discussions

Re: [OpenBIOS] Re: boy is EFI a kludge!
by Per Jessen 28 Aug '01

28 Aug '01

> >The server farm is a cool idea. If you want, I can submit the outline >design idea for my new multiprocessor machine. Building a multiprocesing >server is quite easy, (some dudes in a UK uni. managed to cobble one >together from old 486 CPUs)..the problem is the operating system... See http://www.beowulf.org , http://www.mosix.org, http://www.scyld.com regards, Per regards, Per Jessen, Zurich http://www.enidan.com - home of the J1 serial console. Windows 2001: "I'm sorry Dave ... I'm afraid I can't do that." - To unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo(a)freiburg.linux.de with 'unsubscribe openbios' in the body of the message

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Re: [OpenBIOS] Re: boy is EFI a kludge!
by Per Jessen 28 Aug '01

28 Aug '01

>On Tue, 28 Aug 2001 02:01:34 -0700 (PDT), Chris Maresca wrote: > >Hhmmm, that's just gratuitous eye candy, no? Besides, it's pretty trivial >to replace those graphics with logos or other stuff. I think that doing >things that are new and usefull (like serial consoles) would really help >get people and hardware manufacturers interested. Imagine being able to >run a server farm with no graphics cards, just a serial console and >ethernet... We're working on it ... <shameless plug> See http://www.enidan.com/j1 We're not quite there yet with the PCI-version, but it's in progress. </shameless plug> For an alternative, see http://www.realweasel.com. regards, Per Jessen regards, Per Jessen, Principal Engineer, ENIDAN Technologies Ltd http://www.enidan.com - home of the J1 serial console. ---------------------------------------------------------- Please note: This message is intended for the use of the individual to whom it is addressed and may contain information which is privileged, confidential and exempt from disclosure under applicable law. If the reader of this message is not the intended, or is not the employee or agent responsible for delivering the message to the intended recipient, you are hereby notified that any dissemination, distribution, or copying of this communication is strictly prohibited. If you have received this communication in error, please notify the sender immediately by return email. Thank you. - To unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo(a)freiburg.linux.de with 'unsubscribe openbios' in the body of the message

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[IMPORTANT] Legal Issues.
by Stefan Reinauer 28 Aug '01

28 Aug '01

Dear OpenBIOS project members and other interested parties, There has been a lot of rumours and discussion about the "availability" of sources for Award BIOS and other commercial firmwares on this mailing list recently. These sources were apparently available from their authors accidently. Due to the copyright and patent infringement implied by such actions as well as the fact that reusing faulty commercial concepts for an open-source firmware implementation is simply a bad idea I have to set down the following ground rules in order to achieve a clean implementation of our project goals and avoid possible future prosecution: 1) The goal of this project is to develop a free, open source, architecture independant firmware implementation following, when possible, the IEEE Standard for Boot (Initialization Configuration) Firmware (IEEE 1275-1994). Including not only the implementation of the standard itself but also the required toolkit consisting of a C to FCode compiler, an FCode tokenizer and an FCode detokenizer. This toolkit will simplify driver and API development implementing ANSI C as the development language instead of Forth/FCode as suggested by the IEEE standard. 2) We cannot allow _any_ discussion or use of _any_ copyrighted, patented, or otherwise protected Firmware or BIOS implementations in this project or on the mailing list associated with this project. All members of this project and/or the according mailing lists agree to not disclose or use any copyrighted, patented, or otherwise protected information, ideas or concepts. 3) We do not intend to implement any of the ideas or concepts expressed in the current Intel 32bit architechture, except when these are necessary to insure the compatability with existing hardware. Such ideas and concepts will only be used if such use is not restricted by _any_ laws, copyrights or patents. 4) In order to assure truly universal implementation and/or optimize the functionality and performance it is our expressed wish to work in conjunction with other open source firmware projects. 5) Cooperation with hardware vendors is necessary to implement this project on an architecture-independent basis. In certain cases this may include signing non-disclosure agreements with the aforementioned hardware vendors in an attempt to acquire hardware specific information or support that may not otherwise be available although the results of such cooperation must be freely redistributable. 6) Cooperation with any university, research project, or organization is desired except in such cases where the resulting information is restricted in use or redistributability. 7) Although we agree with the ideas promoted by the free software foundation we do not and/or cannot necessarily agree with all of the rules set by the foundation. In this light it could, to some extent, be a contrast of wishes to become an offical GNU project. If, for whatever reasons, any of the above statements are unacceptable or seem to be inccorect or unclear in _any_ way please do not hesitate to discuss this matter on the mailing list, I am open for suggestions. This is simply an attempt to assure the legal stauts of this project, protecting those involved from legal prosecution as well as to state the general goals of the project. Best regards, Stefan Reinauer <stepan(a)core-systems.de> OpenBIOS project founder. -- Mad, adj.: Affected with a high degree of intellectual independence. -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary" - To unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo(a)freiburg.linux.de with 'unsubscribe openbios' in the body of the message

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Re: boy is EFI a kludge!
by ebiederman＠lnxi.com 28 Aug '01

28 Aug '01

Ronald G Minnich <rminnich(a)lanl.gov> writes: > OK, looking around, it's about what I expected. > > However one thing we might be able to use: EFI is called from something > called SAL. SAL is real low-level stuff you will never see the source to > that does all the horrible stuff that Intel won't tell us how to do. > > You don't need EFI. You need something to link to SAL that replaces EFI. I > think that's our hook. As a start perhaps. But there is only one thing I have seen that is slower than the native L440GX BIOS. An Itanium Box. And judging by when the video screen came on it looks like it was probably in that mysterious SAL code. And while I have no problem with BIOS code taking it's time. On a personal level I hate to work with slow BIOS's. And when things are unreasonably slow I suspect that there is something that just doesn't work running in there. So if intel won't cooperate we need to plan on reverse engineering SAL. Unless IA64 dies soon it is probably a worthwhile investment. Eric - To unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo(a)freiburg.linux.de with 'unsubscribe openbios' in the body of the message

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Re: [OpenBIOS] Re: boy is EFI a kludge!
by Parag Patel 28 Aug '01

28 Aug '01

On Tue, 28 Aug 2001, Gavin Robert Brewer wrote: > Textual interfaces are pretty much obsolete. Real Computers[1] boot and run without graphic interfaces[2]. [1] Servers, mainframes, and embedded systems[3]. [2] Although some may have serial consoles. [3] Which completely outnumber all other computers put together. -- -- Parag Patel Once ... in the wilds of Afghanistan, I lost my corkscrew, and we were forced to live on nothing but food and water for days. -- W. C. Fields, "My Little Chickadee" - To unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo(a)freiburg.linux.de with 'unsubscribe openbios' in the body of the message

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Award BIOS Source code
by Masoud Sharbiani 28 Aug '01

28 Aug '01

Hi, My Name is Masoud Sharbiani, and I am working for OEone corporation (www.oeone.com), a software developement company which is located in Hull, Quebec, Canada. I am interested in the Award BIOS source code for developing Power management aware appliactions and I have to have the BIOS source code. I would be very grateful if you can either send me the tarball you mentioned, or give me a pointer where I can download it. Best Wishes, Masoud - To unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo(a)freiburg.linux.de with 'unsubscribe openbios' in the body of the message

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RE: [OpenBIOS] Re: boy is EFI a kludge!
by Jamie Stanley 28 Aug '01

28 Aug '01

The 'Energy Saver' 'graphics' is nothing more than altering the system font (I remember capturing it afew years ago in dos pascal!) and I know that you can alter it to give any charactor a new appearance (like a bunch of them for say 'Energy Saver')... I'll try and dig out the code if required!.... Jamie. :) -----Original Message----- From: Gavin Robert Brewer [mailto:gavinbr@gavinbr.worldonline.co.uk] Sent: 28 August 2001 09:22 To: openbios(a)elvis.informatik.uni-freiburg.de Subject: Re: [OpenBIOS] Re: boy is EFI a kludge! > There was a post on /. today about a BIOS that boots in .8 sec. That > seems to be pretty good... Now all we need to do is speed up linux > boot... There is a lot of spam during linux bootup that strikes me as gratuitous techie garbage. It would be better to find a way of booting directly into the OpenWindows or some such. Not wishing to be negative, but I would really like to ask Linus as to why he chose to have all that spam redirected to the screen at bootup. It is'nt very eyecatching. We can get around this by hand-coding in some basic graphics primitives. Award BIOS managed to do it with the famous 'Energy Saver' trademark we all see when we power up our PC's...so it must be possible for our coders to capitalise on this kind of 'instant graphics'. Bresenhams' algorithm and some other basic scan-conversion primitives are a must. (For more information, see 'Computer Graphics' by Foley et. Al...) Hope this helps, Gavin. - To unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo(a)freiburg.linux.de with 'unsubscribe openbios' in the body of the message - To unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo(a)freiburg.linux.de with 'unsubscribe openbios' in the body of the message

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RE: [OpenBIOS] award bios source code - please send requests
by Jason Gurtz 28 Aug '01

28 Aug '01

Sure, send a copy my way please ~Jason > having just returned from a weeks sailing in the Ionian Sea, > I remembered > I had a number of requests for a copy of the Award BIOS source code I > mentioned in a previous posting to the list. > > If you're interested, simply reply to this email. - To unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo(a)freiburg.linux.de with 'unsubscribe openbios' in the body of the message

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Re: [OpenBIOS] award bios source code - please send requests
by Mukaila Olundegun 28 Aug '01

28 Aug '01

I am interested in the AwardBios source code too. Regards. Mukaila -----Original Message----- From: Per Jessen <per(a)computer.org> To: openbios(a)elvis.informatik.uni-freiburg.de <openbios(a)elvis.informatik.uni-freiburg.de> Cc: eddy(a)noc.everquick.net <eddy(a)noc.everquick.net>; clive.jenkins(a)clara.net <clive.jenkins(a)clara.net>; cu0815(a)compuserve.de <cu0815(a)compuserve.de> Date: Sunday, August 26, 2001 8:36 AM Subject: [OpenBIOS] award bios source code - please send requests >All, > >having just returned from a weeks sailing in the Ionian Sea, I remembered >I had a number of requests for a copy of the Award BIOS source code I >mentioned in a previous posting to the list. > >If you're interested, simply reply to this email. > >Note: the gzipped tar-ball is about 5Mb. > > >regards, >Per > > >regards, >Per Jessen, Zurich >http://www.enidan.com - home of the J1 serial console. > >Windows 2001: "I'm sorry Dave ... I'm afraid I can't do that." > > >- >To unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo(a)freiburg.linux.de >with 'unsubscribe openbios' in the body of the message > - To unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo(a)freiburg.linux.de with 'unsubscribe openbios' in the body of the message

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Re: [OpenBIOS] award bios source code - please send requests
by Kikelomo Molly Olundegun 28 Aug '01

28 Aug '01

-----Original Message----- From: Per Jessen <per(a)computer.org> To: openbios(a)elvis.informatik.uni-freiburg.de <openbios(a)elvis.informatik.uni-freiburg.de> Cc: eddy(a)noc.everquick.net <eddy(a)noc.everquick.net>; clive.jenkins(a)clara.net <clive.jenkins(a)clara.net>; cu0815(a)compuserve.de <cu0815(a)compuserve.de> Date: Sunday, August 26, 2001 8:36 AM Subject: [OpenBIOS] award bios source code - please send requests >All, > >having just returned from a weeks sailing in the Ionian Sea, I remembered >I had a number of requests for a copy of the Award BIOS source code I >mentioned in a previous posting to the list. > >If you're interested, simply reply to this email. > >Note: the gzipped tar-ball is about 5Mb. > > >regards, >Per > > >regards, >Per Jessen, Zurich >http://www.enidan.com - home of the J1 serial console. > >Windows 2001: "I'm sorry Dave ... I'm afraid I can't do that." > > >- >To unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo(a)freiburg.linux.de >with 'unsubscribe openbios' in the body of the message > - To unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo(a)freiburg.linux.de with 'unsubscribe openbios' in the body of the message

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