[OpenBIOS] ASM/C and 16/32 bit questions.

[David Woodhouse]

madman at zip.com.au said:
> 	This might be a really bad idea but let me know what you think anyway
> :) How about doing a really low level boot loader of some sort so if
> your booting linux it goes into 32bit protected mode early where as if
> you boot dos or win it loads into 16-bit mode with all the int's that
> are needed?

I don't think we'd gain much from the 32-bit stuff. It'd mean that we have 
to provide both 16-bit and 32-bit versions of a number of functions, and who'd 
ever use the 32-bit API?

Linux is always going to have to handle going into 32-bit mode itself, in case
it's booted from a standard BIOS. We'd have to write a whole new Linux boot
method to get it using the 32-bit BIOS API, and nobody else would ever use it.

I think we should stick to pretending to be a normal BIOS for now. We can try 
adding extra stuff when it's working properly.

----                              ----                              ----
David Woodhouse, Robinson College, CB3 9AN, England.   (+44) 0976 658355
    Dave at imladris.demon.co.uk        http://dwmw2.robinson.cam.ac.uk
	    finger pgp at dwmw2.robinson.cam.ac.uk for PGP key.



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