[Fwd: Re: [PPCBoot-users] PPCboot vs ARMboot or Blob and a Merge with LinuxBIOS]

[Stefan Reinauer]

* Bari Ari <bari at onelabs.com> [021009 16:03]:
> in message <3DA3D18E.4000109 at onelabs.com> you wrote:
> >
> >LinuxBIOS was designed to use Linux to boot the OS of choice.
> 
> So was PPCBoot, but without excluding the resto of the world.
 
Neither does LinuxBIOS.. It can load plan9 and winCE afaik.

> >It uses some assembly to do some basic init and config and then jumps to 
> >Linux to fully configure the rest of the system, after that LinuxBIOS 
> >jumps to whatever OS kernel is wanted.
> 
> So your boot sequence is LinuxBIOS => Linux => LinuxBIOS => Target OS?

> Seems a bit overkill to  me.  Especially  in  systems  where  (flash)
> memory  is  tight  it  might be a PITA to have to reserve space for a
> Linux kernel just to initialize the hardware.

It's LinuxBIOS => EtherBoot => TargetOS. Linux itself is basically not
needed.

 
> >For simple systems PPCboot looks like a great way to go. LinuxBIOS would 
> >add support and config for more complex systems that include PCI, PCI 
> >Express, Infiniband and Hypertransport.
 
Is there any hypertransport setup code yet? One might assume that some
major three letter hardware vendor would not want that code to become
public?

Best regards,
  Stefan Reinauer
  
-- 
The x86 isn't all that complex - it just doesn't make a lot of
sense.          -- Mike Johnson, Leader of 80x86 Design at AMD
	                          Microprocessor Report (1994)