Re: [OpenBIOS] ASM/C and 16/32 bit questions.

[David Woodhouse]

[e-mail] said:
> 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?

I don't think we'd gain much from the 32-bit stuff. It'd mean that we have 
to provide both 16-bit and 32-bit versions of a number of functions, and who'd 
ever use the 32-bit API?

Linux is always going to have to handle going into 32-bit mode itself, in case
it's booted from a standard BIOS. We'd have to write a whole new Linux boot
method to get it using the 32-bit BIOS API, and nobody else would ever use it.

I think we should stick to pretending to be a normal BIOS for now. We can try 
adding extra stuff when it's working properly.

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David Woodhouse, Robinson College, CB3 9AN, England.   ([phone]
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ASM/C and 16/32 bit questions.

[Dave Cinege]

David Woodhouse wrote:
> [e-mail] said:
> >   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?
>
> I don't think we'd gain much from the 32-bit stuff. It'd mean that we have
> to provide both 16-bit and 32-bit versions of a number of functions, and who'd
> ever use the 32-bit API?

When I think 32-bit in the BIOS, to me that means being able to deal with larger
drives, and booting partitions with a huge sector offset. (corrections please)

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