Cinap, I salute you and the good sense you write.
-Steve > On 19 Nov 2016, at 16:57, cinap_len...@felloff.net wrote: > > calling into firmware code is a big can of worms because firmware is full > of bugs and only works with a small set of the major operating systems that > the firmware authors tested it with. > > and theres not really an option for doing it from userspace. > > you need to call it from kernel mode ring zero and make sure the firmware > has the same idea of the virtual memory mappings as your kernel plus > work arround the unstated assumptions of the firmware. > > linux has a track record of bricked machines and firmware corrupting > memory. > > it is just not worth it. > > in 9front, the kernel never calls firmware. it does interpret a limited > set of acpi methods on boot to figure out pci interrupt mappings and > and then frees the acpi environment never to return. > > all efi/bios calls are done by the bootloader *before* it enters the kernel > so we never have to rely on efi/bios firmware assumptoins. the bootloader > collects the information from efi and passes it to the kernel as plan9.ini > variables. > > efi firmware has a boot manager were the user can add and modify entries. > > -- > cinap