From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Received: from mailman by lists.gnu.org with archive (Exim 4.43) id 1NH1Jy-0000kt-Vs for mharc-grub-devel@gnu.org; Sat, 05 Dec 2009 15:33:39 -0500 Received: from mailman by lists.gnu.org with tmda-scanned (Exim 4.43) id 1NH1Jw-0000kL-M5 for grub-devel@gnu.org; Sat, 05 Dec 2009 15:33:36 -0500 Received: from exim by lists.gnu.org with spam-scanned (Exim 4.43) id 1NH1Jr-0000js-7m for grub-devel@gnu.org; Sat, 05 Dec 2009 15:33:35 -0500 Received: from [199.232.76.173] (port=47656 helo=monty-python.gnu.org) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.43) id 1NH1Jr-0000jp-28 for grub-devel@gnu.org; Sat, 05 Dec 2009 15:33:31 -0500 Received: from xvm-190-8.ghst.net ([217.70.190.8]:40971 helo=aybabtu.com) by monty-python.gnu.org with esmtps (TLS-1.0:RSA_AES_256_CBC_SHA1:32) (Exim 4.60) (envelope-from ) id 1NH1Jq-0006LH-K5 for grub-devel@gnu.org; Sat, 05 Dec 2009 15:33:30 -0500 Received: from [192.168.10.10] (helo=thorin) by aybabtu.com with esmtp (Exim 4.69) (envelope-from ) id 1NH1Jp-00071a-AN for grub-devel@gnu.org; Sat, 05 Dec 2009 21:33:29 +0100 Received: from rmh by thorin with local (Exim 4.69) (envelope-from ) id 1NH1Jo-0000tl-Lx for grub-devel@gnu.org; Sat, 05 Dec 2009 21:33:28 +0100 Date: Sat, 5 Dec 2009 21:33:28 +0100 From: Robert Millan To: The development of GNU GRUB Message-ID: <20091205203328.GC32638@thorin> References: <20091202202646.GD23641@turki.gavron.org> <4B17D641.4070000@gmail.com> <2e59e6970912031627h5c9839b7wcf01171ee7574c8c@mail.gmail.com> <20091204213649.GP1528@thorin> <2e59e6970912041445h603dc278m160695b832121b5@mail.gmail.com> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Disposition: inline In-Reply-To: <2e59e6970912041445h603dc278m160695b832121b5@mail.gmail.com> Organization: free as in freedom X-Message-Flag: Worried about Outlook viruses? Switch to Thunderbird! www.mozilla.com/thunderbird X-Debbugs-No-Ack: true User-Agent: Mutt/1.5.18 (2008-05-17) X-detected-operating-system: by monty-python.gnu.org: GNU/Linux 2.6 (newer, 3) Subject: Re: USB device not seen by grub X-BeenThere: grub-devel@gnu.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.5 Precedence: list Reply-To: The development of GNU GRUB List-Id: The development of GNU GRUB List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Sat, 05 Dec 2009 20:33:36 -0000 On Fri, Dec 04, 2009 at 04:45:01PM -0600, richardvoigt@gmail.com wrote: > There are actually quite a lot of devices like this. Most notebooks > have broken BIOS that won't load the extension ROM from a PCMCIA slot, > if grub could do so it would enable booting from a wide variety of > PCMCIA/CardBus/ExpressCard-to-SCSI/SATA/USB adapters. PCI ROM processing is a feature we need. The reason we need this is not to help proprietary OSes, but so that modules like vbe or biosdisk can work on other platforms (e.g. coreboot). The code in those ROMs is often proprietary, but it is external to the motherboard. This is important, because GRUB may act as the primary firmware for PC-class motherboards (when combined with coreboot). In this kind of setup, GRUB itself can't support external cards using its own drivers and must rely on the PCI ROM ones. Therefore this interaction is always needed. Also, some platforms like EFI insist on acting as a wrapper between these PCI ROM drivers and the bootloader. Since this wrapper is completely useless and just adding overhead, we might as well skip it. -- Robert Millan The DRM opt-in fallacy: "Your data belongs to us. We will decide when (and how) you may access your data; but nobody's threatening your freedom: we still allow you to remove your data and not access it at all."