[PROPOSAL] extended payload handling

Frank frannk_m1 at yahoo.com
Tue Jun 8 11:36:01 CEST 2004


Finally, someone has recognized the lack of support with
LinuxBios. About 6 months ago we decide to do an x86 based
project but abandoned it because of the lack of support for this
bootloader. The code is disorganized and in disarray as far as
I'm concerend. We were on a tight schedule and didn't have the
luxury of spending a lot of time trying to understand the code
layout. This was due in part to the lack of badly needed
documentation and code organization. We decided to base our
design on a powerpc and go with u-boot.
Hopefully by the time we decide to do cost reduced version,
LinuxBios will be usable for the masses and not just for an
elite group of people who assume everybody else uses the x86 for
everyday use.:-(

--- Greg Watson <gwatson at lanl.gov> wrote:
> 
> On Jun 8, 2004, at 7:59 AM, Stefan Reinauer wrote:
> 
> > * Greg Watson <gwatson at lanl.gov> [040608 15:22]:
> >> I think this is a reasonable idea, particularly your
> suggestion of
> >> making linuxbios more modular. One of my main beefs with
> the payload
> >> strategy is that each payload has to provide it's own set
> of,
> >> potentially buggy, driver code. If we have 5 payloads then
> we have 5
> >> sets of drivers that all do the same thing slightly
> differently. If 
> >> the
> >> drivers were modular enough so that a payload could call
> them 
> >> directly,
> >> then this would go a long way to addressing these concerns.
> >
> > As far as I can tell the only drivers involved would be
> output drivers,
> > ie. video output and serial output. There the extensible
> LinuxBIOS 
> > table
> > could come into play. The video driver could store a pointer
> to the
> > framebuffer, the resolution and maybe even a font, to save
> duplicates.
> > Serial is only a kilobyte or so of a driver i think.
> >
> > Have I forgotten something?
> >
> 
> PCI device code and resource information should be available
> for 
> payloads to use. A payload should not have to re-probe for
> devices on 
> the PCI bus.
> 
> Greg
> 
> _______________________________________________
> Linuxbios mailing list
> Linuxbios at clustermatic.org
> http://www.clustermatic.org/mailman/listinfo/linuxbios


	
		
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