FW = Florian Wunderlich florian.wunderlich@tec.med.uni-muenchen.de BS = Ben Scott hawk@ttlc.net (me)
FW> Filesystem code in a _BASIC_ input/output system is not a good idea FW> IMHO.
BS> The firmware on IBM-PCs can no longer be correctly termed solely an BS> input/output system.
FW> The emphasis was on BASIC, as shown with upper case letters, and maybe we FW> should remind that fact.
Why should we limit ourselves to something which only basically accomplishes our needs? Let's make it an advanced input/output system, then. <grin>
FW> What I wanted to express is that FS code does not belong to the BIOS or M/B FW> firmware or whatever you want to call it. It depends on the operating FW> system, not on the hardware, and in consequence, it should be implemented FW> in the os.
I agree, in general, except that it would make booting oh-so-much easier. Wouldn't it be nice to be able to boot a Linux kernel simply by specifiying device, partition, and kernel path and name? Sure beats saving physical disk locations to the MBR every time you recompile. :-)
Some other platforms include such basic real-filesystem support in the boot firmware. I think we should, too. My opinion, of course, but others have expressed a liking for it, too.
OS> Note, I did not say I think it should be part of the BIOS code, just OS> that it should reside in ROM.
BS> With all due respect, this is a technical mailing list, not an English BS> lesson. :-) We are not computers. We can (hopefully :) figure out BS> what other human beings mean without needing literal terms.
FW> Huh. May I repeat that? :-)
Just that the person was making a big deal out of the fact that BIOS stands for "Basic Input/Output System", and thus if we have code that isn't strictly for basic input/output, he claims it's not part of the BIOS. And then went on to complain about calling "flash ROM" ROM because it's not read-only.
I would hope that we're all smart enough to adjust to the "BIOS" being more then a basic input/output system, and that modern "ROM" isn't read-only. :-)
We're here to improve things, not argue semantics, no? :-)
-- Ben
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