Re: [RFC] Multiboot2 drafting

["Vladimir 'φ-coder/phcoder' Serbinenko" <phcoder@gmail.com>]

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> Hi there,
>
> I know next to nothing about GRUB, and have not yet read the
> multiboot spec, but I wonder if you could comment on how or
> whether this is related to either the Open Firmware Device Tree
> or the Flattened Device Tree used in various embedded OS ports.
> It would be cool if there were some convergence going on...
>
>  =20
Yes and No. multiboot2 describes some aspects of the host system
hardware but I've never heard of device trees outside of IEEE1275 or
xnu, where it's probably a historical leftover. If this specification is
clear and share some of our goals we can think of collaboration. Our
goals in this direction:
1) Allow the same kernel load on all machines implementing the same ISA.
This will require supplying info about machine.
2) Keep the things as advanced as they need to but not more advanced.
E.g. when you supply an info about serial port you tell: it's at I/O
port N rather than: it's in PCI bar X of device Y offset F. Since if OS
doesn't support PCI this info is useless and if it does it will find out
that this address is actually a part of PCI bar. This can be discussed
though.
3) Firmware independency. Ideally OS shouldn't care at all which
firmware it's running on. In some cases we may add pointers to firmware
interfaces if there are good reasons for it but it's not the goal

So if it's something clean and nice we should try integrating it. If
it's however yet another firmware-dependant overkill interface it should
be avoided.

--=20
Regards
Vladimir '=CF=86-coder/phcoder' Serbinenko



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