Re: [Qemu-devel] [Patch] Ali Chipset support for PC [+ questions about alpha-softmmu target]

[Paul Brook <paul@codesourcery.com>]

On Wednesday 10 September 2008, Tristan Gingold wrote:
> On Sep 10, 2008, at 4:46 PM, Paul Brook wrote:
> >> So if you get the SRM decompressed from es40, you can start to work
> >> on the softmmu emulation.
> >
> > Does linux actually use the bios at all once it's loaded[1]?
> > If not the simplest solution may be to load the kernel directly,
> > and ignore
> > the machine firmware.
>
> The SRM contains the PALcode and any OS depends on PALcode.
> MILO is an open-source firmware for Alpha.  Maybe we could start from
> it too.

Using an open source bootloader is almost certainly going to make your job a 
lot easier. It's much easier to get things up and running when you can hack 
the bootloader to workaround deficiencies in the emulation, and debug things 
from both ends (instrumentation the bootloader to tell you what it thinks is 
going on).  The final goal may be to run unmodified images from real 
machines, but there are a lot of very useful intermediate steps before you 
get there.

Paul