Using int 13 calls in elks

Using int 13 calls in elks

[Jason Dictos]

Hello,
  
   I have some code to port from an MSDOS based application who's main goal
was to write partition data to a bios addressable disk. Currently under
linux/bsd, I haven't found any way to call int 13 style calls from within
the protected mode operating system, however I hear that elks has some bios
disk drivers. Basically our goal with this application is to be able to
write/read from bios addressable disks in a multi threaded environment.

Can elks help me out here?

Thanks in advance,
-Jason

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Re: Using int 13 calls in elks

[David Given]

On Thursday 11 March 2004 05:51, you wrote:
[...]
>    I have some code to port from an MSDOS based application who's main goal
> was to write partition data to a bios addressable disk. Currently under
> linux/bsd, I haven't found any way to call int 13 style calls from within
> the protected mode operating system, however I hear that elks has some bios
> disk drivers. Basically our goal with this application is to be able to
> write/read from bios addressable disks in a multi threaded environment.
>
> Can elks help me out here?

Yup; but you want to do things the Unix way, not the DOS way.

ELKS has a BIOS disk driver. /dev/bda, bdb, etc IIRC. (Names might be a little 
off.) To access the disk directly, just open the device (as root), seek to 
the appropriate place, and do read() and write(). Easy!

If you want to look *within* a partition, the /dev/bda1, bda2, etc point to 
those.

Big Linux won't let you make BIOS calls *at all* (largely because most of the 
BIOS' data structures don't exist), but there are native Linux drivers 
available for practically all BIOS-addressable devices. What's the thing you 
want to access?

-- 
+- David Given --McQ-+ 
|  dg@cowlark.com    | Quidquid latine dictum sit, altum viditur.
| (dg@tao-group.com) | 
+- www.cowlark.com --+ 

Re: Using int 13 calls in elks

[Gábor Lénárt]

Hi,

I don't even understand this type of logic. Why do you want to use int 13h?
It's a stone aged service from a time, when there was the simply "OS" named
DOS which was "layered" on BIOS. But NOW everybody should avoid using BIOS
or such. IMHO. Of course every system has got its own method you should use,
like on UNIX you should use the UNIX way. Use BIOS if you write a DOS
application. But according your mail, you want to PORT a something, so you
should use the schemantic of the target system, and not overhacked solution
just for creating a very ugly, unstable and unmaintainable soluton. IMHO
again.

Hope, my oppionion helped and you don't treat my mail as a flame starter one ...

- Gábor

On Wed, Mar 10, 2004 at 09:51:58PM -0800, Jason Dictos wrote:
> Hello,
>   
>    I have some code to port from an MSDOS based application who's main goal
> was to write partition data to a bios addressable disk. Currently under
> linux/bsd, I haven't found any way to call int 13 style calls from within
> the protected mode operating system, however I hear that elks has some bios
> disk drivers. Basically our goal with this application is to be able to
> write/read from bios addressable disks in a multi threaded environment.
> 
> Can elks help me out here?
> 
> Thanks in advance,
> -Jason
> 
> ______________________________________________________________________
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> -
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-- 
- Gábor (larta'H)
-
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RE: Using int 13 calls in elks

[Jason Dictos]

Hi Gábor,

	My goal is simply to be able to see a computers hard drive without
relying on any sort of device driver. I just heard from David Given, that
elks has bios drivers, so if thats the case then I don't really care too
much about using int 13 ;).

-Jason

-----Original Message-----
From: Gábor Lénárt [mailto:lgb@lgb.hu] 
Sent: Thursday, March 11, 2004 3:45 AM
To: Jason Dictos
Cc: 'Linux-8086@Vger.Kernel.Org'
Subject: Re: Using int 13 calls in elks

Hi,

I don't even understand this type of logic. Why do you want to use int 13h?
It's a stone aged service from a time, when there was the simply "OS" named
DOS which was "layered" on BIOS. But NOW everybody should avoid using BIOS
or such. IMHO. Of course every system has got its own method you should use,
like on UNIX you should use the UNIX way. Use BIOS if you write a DOS
application. But according your mail, you want to PORT a something, so you
should use the schemantic of the target system, and not overhacked solution
just for creating a very ugly, unstable and unmaintainable soluton. IMHO
again.

Hope, my oppionion helped and you don't treat my mail as a flame starter one
...

- Gábor

On Wed, Mar 10, 2004 at 09:51:58PM -0800, Jason Dictos wrote:
> Hello,
>   
>    I have some code to port from an MSDOS based application who's main 
> goal was to write partition data to a bios addressable disk. Currently 
> under linux/bsd, I haven't found any way to call int 13 style calls 
> from within the protected mode operating system, however I hear that 
> elks has some bios disk drivers. Basically our goal with this 
> application is to be able to write/read from bios addressable disks in a
multi threaded environment.
> 
> Can elks help me out here?
> 
> Thanks in advance,
> -Jason
> 
> ______________________________________________________________________
> This email has been scanned by the MessageLabs Email Security System.
> For more information please visit http://www.messagelabs.com/email 
> ______________________________________________________________________
> -
> To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe linux-8086" 
> in the body of a message to majordomo@vger.kernel.org More majordomo 
> info at  http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html

--
- Gábor (larta'H)

______________________________________________________________________
This email has been scanned by the MessageLabs Email Security System.
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______________________________________________________________________

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RE: Using int 13 calls in elks

[Jason Dictos]

Fantastic, I've been looking for exactly this, a bios disk driver on a free
unix style os. 

Guess its time to start reading up on Elks!

Thanks for the reply,
-Jason

-----Original Message-----
From: linux-8086-owner@vger.kernel.org
[mailto:linux-8086-owner@vger.kernel.org] On Behalf Of David Given
Sent: Thursday, March 11, 2004 3:09 AM
To: Linux-8086@Vger.Kernel.Org
Subject: Re: Using int 13 calls in elks

On Thursday 11 March 2004 05:51, you wrote:
[...]
>    I have some code to port from an MSDOS based application who's main 
> goal was to write partition data to a bios addressable disk. Currently 
> under linux/bsd, I haven't found any way to call int 13 style calls 
> from within the protected mode operating system, however I hear that 
> elks has some bios disk drivers. Basically our goal with this 
> application is to be able to write/read from bios addressable disks in a
multi threaded environment.
>
> Can elks help me out here?

Yup; but you want to do things the Unix way, not the DOS way.

ELKS has a BIOS disk driver. /dev/bda, bdb, etc IIRC. (Names might be a
little
off.) To access the disk directly, just open the device (as root), seek to
the appropriate place, and do read() and write(). Easy!

If you want to look *within* a partition, the /dev/bda1, bda2, etc point to
those.

Big Linux won't let you make BIOS calls *at all* (largely because most of
the BIOS' data structures don't exist), but there are native Linux drivers
available for practically all BIOS-addressable devices. What's the thing you
want to access?

-- 
+- David Given --McQ-+
|  dg@cowlark.com    | Quidquid latine dictum sit, altum viditur.
| (dg@tao-group.com) |
+- www.cowlark.com --+
-
To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe linux-8086" in the
body of a message to majordomo@vger.kernel.org More majordomo info at
http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html

______________________________________________________________________
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______________________________________________________________________

______________________________________________________________________
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Re: Using int 13 calls in elks

[Bill Marcum]

On Wed, Mar 10, 2004 at 09:51:58PM -0800, Jason Dictos wrote:
> Hello,
>   
>    I have some code to port from an MSDOS based application who's main goal
> was to write partition data to a bios addressable disk. Currently under
> linux/bsd, I haven't found any way to call int 13 style calls from within
> the protected mode operating system, however I hear that elks has some bios
> disk drivers. Basically our goal with this application is to be able to
> write/read from bios addressable disks in a multi threaded environment.
> 
> Can elks help me out here?
> 
In elks, as in most unix-like operating systems, there should be no
need for a user program to directly call the bios interrupts. The
partition table, and the rest of the hard drive, can be read/written as
/dev/bd(a-d).


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RE: Using int 13 calls in elks

[Alan Cox]

On Iau, 2004-03-11 at 16:22, Jason Dictos wrote:
> Fantastic, I've been looking for exactly this, a bios disk driver on a free
> unix style os. 

Its about the only one that can do it, simply because its 16bit real
mode so still BIOS friendly. You should never need bios int13 in a Unix
system because you can open the raw disk device and read/write from it
rather than going via the file system.