Clarification....

[(Corvin Zahn)]

hi,

I think, one question we have to clarify is, what OS we want to run above our
BIOS.

1. If it will be MS-DOS or Windows, we have to make the BIOS compatible to the
standard IBM BIOS. There won't be much room for an own/better API. It would be
a very tedious work to copy the whole interface.

2. If it will be Linux, we don't need the I and the O, a simple boot loader
which initializes the hardware will do the job. You could think of the Linux
Kernel as a very sophisticated BIOS, which adapts the hardware to a comfortable
API (glibc) :)

Because the whole project is complex (think of all the chipsets, we had to care
for and other hardware differences from an simple embedded 386EX to a Pentium
II with PCI and AGP), I don't think, we can manage (1.) in half a year. If we
concentrate on a simple, good, flexible boot loader, we could get a running
system in finite time. 
For legacy OS's, I like the approach to load a legacy BIOS with this simple
boot loader.

If we later want the I and the O, would it be possible to strip down a (already
for many hardware platforms configurable) Linux Kernel?
The aim would be then, to sepearate Linux in a hardware dependent and a
hardware independent part. The hardware dependent part could migrate to a kind
of BIOS, the hardware independent to a Linux Kernel, which don't have to be
configured for a special platform any more. Big project anywhere, I think.

Opinions?

Corvin


---
Corvin Zahn <zahn at zac.de>