-----Original Message----- From: Pavel Machek pavel@elf.ucw.cz Cc: openbios@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
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