New to LinuxBIOS - PIII?

[ron minnich]

On Fri, 17 Oct 2003, Evan Langlois wrote:

> We're considering using LinuxBIOS for various reasons (well, I am), however 
> looking at the web site and vendor list is a bit disappointing.  I'm a bit 
> concerned about long-term availability since most motherboards marked as 
> "stable" are already at the end of their lifecycle.  I'm hoping that list is 
> outdated.

It is outdated, but the problem you cite is real. We need more people 
getting involved, but it would be better if those people were vendors such 
as Tyan. We never wanted to be in the mobo port business; we wanted to 
encourage vendors to ship linuxbios installed. Some vendors have 
responded, but not as many as we would like.

> Basically, I'm hoping to get LinuxBIOS into a reliable, server-grade
> Pentium III (or better) motherboard that can handle a 1+ Ghz CPU.  
> Preferably with dual Intel NICs on-board.  I know, I'm asking way too
> much.  From there, I'd like to customize the kernel in the ROM to
> provide encrypted hard disk support (likely an IDE Flash drive), and
> loading our software from an encrypted drive so people can't yank out
> the drive and read it.

Can you afford a Tyan K8 dual-proc? Buy that with linuxbios installed by
Tyan. A friend of mine from Sandia bought one and it is working for him.
You can get Arima HDAMA systems from Linux NetWorx. Linux Labs will sell 
server-grade motherboards with LinuxBIOS installed. cwlinux.com will well 
motherboards with linuxbios installed too. 

I think you can get what you need if you contact the right vendors.

ron