[OpenBIOS] Re: Some Questions and ideas for gnu-bios

[John McPherson]

-----Original Message-----
From: Pavel Machek <pavel at elf.ucw.cz>
Cc: openbios at linkscape.net Date: Wednesday, February 18, 1998 8:46 AM
Subject: [OpenBIOS] Re: Some Questions and ideas for gnu-bios


>
>Under linux, bios is not used (well, with exceptions of APM).
>
>Other 'systems' switch into v86 mode to call bios functions.


  This goes into my major question.  I would like to put the Linux kernel
itself in the flash of one of my older fast 486 machines - I hope to make it
a router, and I am having trouble with the hard drive in that box - if the
kernel is in flash, and maybe most of a ramdisk load, all I need is a floppy
with a few config options.  Perhaps one could make use of the CMOS to store
simple config items.

  If Linux doesn't use the BIOS at all, what initializations if any need to
be done to the system at POST to assign PNP/PCI IRQ settings, test the
memory, keyboard, etc.

  What _exactly_ does the BIOS do to a system when it starts?



---jmc




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