Re: OpenBIOS news.

On 21 Nov, Stefan Reinauer wrote:
> Hi Daniel,
>
> first, I think, we should discuss this on the list. I'd like to forward
> the postings if you haven't anything against this (without the binaries,
> they will go to the webserver...

Ok, openbios CC:ed
> > > Ok. that's pretty good. Did you use the version including my try to
> > > include the menuconfig stuff?
> >
> > No, I though about it but I decided that having one CONFIG_ variable
> > per chip set is wrong, it should be one variable which have the chip
> > set name as a value (have more than one chip set configured make no
> > sense).
>
> I don't see this. I've looked at the pci chipset stuff and it's really
> possible to access and probe the pci bus on newer boards without even
> havinng setup the memory controller.

Yep, but have you tried to program without working RAM? No stack, only
8 registers to keep stuff in? - Believe me the first thing you wanna do
is get at least the first 1MB of RAM working...
> I've talked with this about many people and having support for more than
> one intel chipset in one, for example, would be a knockout fact for award 
> bios in large compuyter pools.

And there are MB specific issues such as how the SIMM/DIMM sockets are
wired, how the AUX chip-select signals found on most super I/O and South
Bridges are used, how the super I/O is implemented, which way to ROM is
mapped after reset (do we look at the top 64k or the bottom in a 128k
ROM).

So I'll tell you - a BIOS image is not only chip set specific, but it is
mother board specific. It might be possible to make a BIOS which works
for several configurations, but that will not be as simple as putting
support for several SCSI HA's or NIC's in a Unix/Linux kernel.

/Daniel
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