Supporting extension ROMs and beyond...

[SONE Takeshi]

On Sat, Aug 09, 2003 at 08:26:55PM +0200, Stefan Reinauer wrote:
> Extensions could be "stackable" and configurable for certain
> application goals:
> * legacy emulation for VGA and SCSI init
> * elf loader
> * openbios kernel

Something like splash image support could be in the extension.
I have one for VESA SVGA but it's a too strange thing to be in
the core. I know supercomputer guys will hate it, but I believe 
some kinds of embedded systems will need it. It will be displayed
ealier than disk spin up.

I also developed a standalone bootloader, by putting together the
IDE driver from Etherboot 5.1 and filesystem code from GRUB,
with keyboard (as well as serial) support and a simple line input
routine to boot arbitrary ELF files in the filesystem of disk.
It's an ELF image for now, but could be ported to LinuxBIOS,
then I can save space for printk etc.

> On the other hand, it has certain advantages as well, the code can
> probably easier integrate an x86 emulation, like milo/srm do on alpha
> and some free ARM firmware implementation does as well..

I'm totally ignorant about non-x86 architecture, but it sounds cool.

--
Takeshi