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LinuxBIOS Boots Linux, OpenBSD, Windows
Ivan writes "LinuxBIOS coupled with BOCHS has replaced the PC BIOS. The union of these two cool open source projects completely replaces closed source BIOS, while retaining the ability to boot other operating systems like BSD and Windows.
Here's the announcement."
Why not start using OpenFirmware on PCs???
If you install this, do you lose your old BIOS? For example, if I install it to my ASUS board, will it eliminate my ability to go to the BIOS setup menus? What happens to my ability to change the jumper settings through software?
OLPC Australia
Okay, from a user's perspective. Even if they consider your board "supported", *and* there aren't any bugs, I have one big question.
How "supported" is "supported"? Can I change all the parameters that I can now? Does the OS get back the right sizes of drives when it asks about them? Are there issues with setting stuff like the RTC? What is broken? How about temperature sensors and other stuff on the I2C bus?
Because I'm willing to be that "we can boot BSD" is a long way from "this is a complete, end-user ready product that supports all the functionality of the hardware."
May we never see th
Does anyone know if this helps us in the war against Palladium and DRM?
Once more unto the breach, dear friends, once more, Or close the wall up with our American dead!
will this conflict with microsoft's palladium plans? sounds like yes. will microsoft try to boycott this project? (rhethorical question..)
As an 'end user' I would rather deal with multi-booting a computer without using LILO or GRUB.
However, I have a few concerns, not on the technical side, but on the political/corporate side (and no, this is not a troll...sheesh)
- Will Microsoft, in its zeal to maintain some semblance of control, seek to disable Windows from using motherboards with this bios...perhaps as one of their many 'updates'?
- If Microsoft pushes forward their "trusted computing" through Palladium, how does this affect this project?
- Since this appears to be a government-funded project, will Microsoft scream that this is unfair (not that they have a point, but will they?). Since the US government seems to be unable to discipline the company, I'm wondering how much power they REALLY have over the government.
- Will this project eventually woo motherboard manufacturers were to leave the various BIOS companies (Award, etc.)?
Sheesh, that was a lot of questions about M$, but I'm not obsessed (sharpening ax on grindstone)
Sorry if this sounds like sci-fi, but I have started lately thinking whether it would be possible to launch a tiny REAL OS from within/integrated with the BIOS. A bit like vmware but on a even lower level - I am thinking this might start being possible now that BIOS capabilities are increasing all the time as well. This would provide many interesting possibilities. Do you see this impossible for some reason? The vmware page says : "VMware technology is patented and patent-pending" - does anyone know exactly which patents they have and what limitations do those pose.
China would love this. Another step closer to paying no techno tax to the west.
Freedom of speech doesn't come with bandwidth.
BTW Linux doesn't use the bios once past the basic boot phase - my mouse works (MS Explorer), My NVidia GeForce II works fine (Mandrake 9.0) AND my computer crashes only if I do something really stupid. Most of the time Lockups can be sorted out by killing X or loging in remotely (via a secure connection - SSH) and killing the process causing the problem, but this is rarely needed.
... But I digress.
Hmmm, Beer....
The Linux Bios is at a state now where boot time is limited by the time taken for the drives to spin up (Note: got to get flash HD for root...)
ASUS may provide **FREE** bios upgrades, this is to fix errors and poss minor speed improvements. I doubt they will support the mentioned implementation of secure hardware with iButtons and alike - Does this look like an alternative (abet slightly different) to Palladium...
I think I'll wait for a more mature release before I go replacing my Award BIOS. As much as I love open source stuff, I don't want to deal with my BIOS being screwed up at the moment.
Incase anyone ever does find themselves in a pickle with a failed BIOS flashrom...
You can often use flashrom chips from other motherboards, sometimes even if they are a different type of flashrom.
I had one machine BIOS upgrade go really bad (no longer even got to display any POST info at all, not even frantic beeping), I pulled the bad flashrom out, booted another motherboard with a DOS floppy with the old ROM image and flash program, while it was ON I pulled out the good flashrom and inserted the bad (two completely different models of motherboard), flashed the bad rom back to the old image, swapped the flashroms back and presto, both machines working.
You have to be very careful not to short anything when extracting the flashroms while the PC is ON and whatever you do, don't insert them the wrong way around!
The Award flashers will typically detect the part type and voltage, warn you that it's not the correct image for the current motherboard (if the mobos are sufficiently different) and then proceed to flash if you give it the OK.
This should probably only be done as a desperate measure where you can afford to loose the motherboard that you temporarily flash with. Pick up some PC's off the street for spare flashroms and elligible flasher motherboards that you don't mind wrecking.
My OpenBSD file server is a Pentium 200MMX that someone just threw out. Works beautifully. In fact every PC I've picked up off the street has worked without any problems.
War crimes, torture, lies, illegal spying... Would someone give Bush a blowjob, already, so he can be impeached?
It looks like the fsmlabs product has come a long way. It is really great that they make it available for free. I think that this approach has several advantages over the Steeplechase system in that you can probably do a lot more with the RTOS. The Steeplechase RTOS was limited.
Unfortunately, Steeplechase didn't make any money. There were licensing costs with the Radisys kernel and most professional controls folks were afraid for PC based control. I have to admit that I would probably limit my exposure to things like data acquisition and small controls projects. Many of the things that I work on tend to go boom or release dangerous chemicals when they fail.
The last thing that I used Steeplechase for was NASA's Payload Ground Handling Mechanism that loads payloads into the space shuttle. We used Steeplchase as a watchdog over the motion controllers. It compared operator input to the motion of the gantry and hit the kill switch if the motion controller seemed to be out of control. It worked very well in that application.
As far as cost, Steeplechase was competitive. It cost about the same to buy the I/O and software as it did to purchase a PLC.