Re: [SeaBIOS] SeaBIOS 16-bit compiler

[Michal Necasek]

(sorry for top posting)

I suppose you don't envision SeaBIOS developers working on Windows then? I expect getting the right GCC bits going on Windows is a roughly comparable effort to getting Open Watcom working on Linux...

Re OW on Linux - the port is a 'beta' in the sense of targeting Linux. But it's possible to build (a subset of) Open Watcom on Linux using GCC and use it as a cross compiler. If it helped, I could probably prepare some kind of a package because I know which parts are needed.

But that's putting the cart before the horse...

I'm not suggesting that OW should replace GCC as the tool to build SeaBIOS, just that it might be a viable alternative. I don't *know* if Open Watcom would generate significantly better code, I'm just assuming that at for the 16-bit parts it's very likely, and the 32-bit code is not likely to be significantly different, especially if code size is a concern.

FWIW, in the past if was toying with the idea of porting the bochs BIOS to Open Watcom, but the code was so bad that it seemed hardly worthwhile (even though Open Watcom could generate about million times better code than bcc). But SeaBIOS is a very different story, it was clearly written by someone who had a clue how to write code :)

Regards,

Michal

----- Original Message ----
From: Kevin O'Connor 
To: Jes Sorensen 
Cc: Michal Necasek ; [e-mail]
Sent: Fri, March 26, 2010 9:32:41 AM
Subject: Re: [SeaBIOS] SeaBIOS 16-bit compiler

On Fri, Mar 26, 2010 at 09:08:45AM +0100, Jes Sorensen wrote:
> Just my $0.02 here, I think relying on a compiler that doesn't run on
> Linux would make it practically impossible for some of us to contribute
> to SeaBIOS. Even if my contributions are rather small.

Full Linux support is a requirement for me as well.

When I last looked, there was a port of Open Watcom to Linux - though
I think it may still be in a "beta" stage.  The fact that it's not
widely available does weigh heavily against using it.
> The way SeaBIOS is built is such a bliss compared to working with the
> old BOCHS codebase.

Thanks.

-Kevin