From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Received: with ECARTIS (v1.0.0; list linux-mips); Mon, 09 Oct 2006 14:25:38 +0100 (BST) Received: from localhost.localdomain ([127.0.0.1]:15539 "EHLO dl5rb.ham-radio-op.net") by ftp.linux-mips.org with ESMTP id S20039425AbWJINZg (ORCPT ); Mon, 9 Oct 2006 14:25:36 +0100 Received: from denk.linux-mips.net (denk.linux-mips.net [127.0.0.1]) by dl5rb.ham-radio-op.net (8.13.7/8.13.7) with ESMTP id k99DPgJe013949; Mon, 9 Oct 2006 14:25:42 +0100 Received: (from ralf@localhost) by denk.linux-mips.net (8.13.7/8.13.7/Submit) id k99DPfe3013948; Mon, 9 Oct 2006 14:25:41 +0100 Date: Mon, 9 Oct 2006 14:25:41 +0100 From: Ralf Baechle To: Jonathan Day Cc: girish , Kaz Kylheku , linux-mips@linux-mips.org Subject: Re: CFE problem: starting secondary CPU. Message-ID: <20061009132540.GA4372@linux-mips.org> References: <9D189830-9D85-4360-BEEE-72A3D5510D77@gmail.com> <20061008213538.84372.qmail@web31502.mail.mud.yahoo.com> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Disposition: inline In-Reply-To: <20061008213538.84372.qmail@web31502.mail.mud.yahoo.com> User-Agent: Mutt/1.4.2.1i Return-Path: X-Envelope-To: <"|/home/ecartis/ecartis -s linux-mips"> (uid 0) X-Orcpt: rfc822;linux-mips@linux-mips.org Original-Recipient: rfc822;linux-mips@linux-mips.org X-archive-position: 12845 X-ecartis-version: Ecartis v1.0.0 Sender: linux-mips-bounce@linux-mips.org Errors-to: linux-mips-bounce@linux-mips.org X-original-sender: ralf@linux-mips.org Precedence: bulk X-list: linux-mips On Sun, Oct 08, 2006 at 02:35:37PM -0700, Jonathan Day wrote: > > would it be reasonable to choose couple of > > bootmonitors and support > > them under MIPS/Linux umbrella. even bootable linux > > would be a good > > choice. > > I can't see why not. For that matter, I can't imagine > it would be too hard to write the necessary flash > support to get LinuxBIOS working. The average firmware implementation contains alot of dark magic about hardware initialization. Producing a decent replacement is not trivial. The current situation is that every vendor has a favorite firmware implementation or sometimes even several depending on vintage or endianess. Repeated problems over the years have taught me the only productive way to live with most firmware implementations is to touch them as little as possible since the rules for coexistence with the OS are usually very weakly worded, inconsistent across platforms and the governing features generally are bugs, incompatibilites and lack of features. End of rant :-) How x86 or Linux centric is LinuxBIOS? Makers of Linux devices want to support other operating systems as well. Ralf