Re: Q: Linux rebooting directly into linux.

Eric W. Biederman
2000-11-12T00:18:56Z

"H. Peter Anvin" <hpa@zytor.com> writes:

> Followup to: <m1g0kycm0x.fsf@frodo.biederman.org>
> By author: ebiederm@xmission.com (Eric W. Biederman)
> In newsgroup: linux.dev.kernel
> > > >
> > > > The interface is designed to be simple and inflexible yet very
> > > > powerful. To that end the code just takes an elf binary, and a
> > > > command line. The started image also takes an environment generated
> > > > by the kernel of all of the unprobeable hardware details.
> > >
> > > Isn't this what milo does on alpha?
> >
> > Similar milo uses kernel drivers in it's own framework.
> > This has proved to be a major maintenance problem. Milo is nearly
> > a kernel fork.
> >
> > The design is for the long term to get this incorporated into the
> > kernel, and even if not a small kernel patch should be easier to
> > maintain that a harness for calling kernel drivers.
> >
>
> I'm working on something similiar in "Genesis". It pretty much is (or
> rather, will be) a kernel *port*, not a fork; the port is such that it
> can run on top of a simple BIOS extender and thus access the boot
> media.

Hmm. You must mean similiar to milo.

Have fun. With linuxBIOS I'm working exactly the other way. Killing
off the BIOS. And letting the initial firmware be just a boot loader.
The reduction is complexity should make it more reliable.