On Wed, 18 Feb 1998 nuke@bayside.net wrote:
On Wed, 18 Feb 1998, Adam Wiggins wrote:
This might be a really bad idea but let me know what you think anyway :) How about doing a really low level boot loader of some sort so if your booting linux it goes into 32bit protected mode early where as if you boot dos or win it loads into 16-bit mode with all the int's that are needed?
what is so wrong with it just booting 16bit mode? we KNOW we can't force standards like 32bit BIOS upon the already overwhelming MS crowd
Well, some of us want to use our BIOS for better things :)
Some people (mostly Linux users, but eventually HURD, BEos, and whatever Sun is whipping up) can go without all the old stuff still supported. If it is a compile-time option to support them, then we can use the spare room in the BIOS for something like the Alpha's SRM console.
I guess I would envision 'DOS Support' as a device to be included :) Most people, myself included, would include it. But if we are gonna let them compile the BIOS, we might as well give them the choice.
Yes, I realize that the Linux kernel would have to be slightly rewritten to use the new BIOS, but why not?
-- Chris Arguin | "Multiple exclamation marks are a sure sign of a Chris.Arguin@unh.edu | diseased mind." - Eric, Terry Pratchett
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