I never said it would be easy, I simply was stating that the reference
designs tend to stick to documented specifications, typically. Of
course, writing a BIOS is hard enough.
John Baldwin had the audacity to say:
> On 19-Jun-00 Coleman Kane wrote:
> > If you start out with a board based on a ref
On 19-Jun-00 Coleman Kane wrote:
> If you start out with a board based on a reference design, say the Intel
> SE440BX, you already have access to all this info. Most chipset vendors have
> info on this sort of thing up on their webpage, I know intel is really good
> about this sort of thing (thou
On 18-Jun-00 Parag Patel wrote:
> On Sat, 17 Jun 2000 07:35:51 +0900, "Daniel C. Sobral" wrote:
>>
>>Loader(8) runs using BIOS services, and loads the kernel from any drive
>>that BIOS recognizes. It has also been enhanced with PXE knowledge, so
>>he can load from that to.
>
> My mistake, as Ron
Parag Patel wrote:
>
> Well, it's more of a matter of putting the kernel itself into the boot
> ROM with some small assembly/C code to turn on DRAM and an ungzipper to
> load and run it. It's fairly simple, other than dealing with the
> various motherboard/chipset vagaries.
Ah, yes, I forgot ab
On Mon, 19 Jun 2000, Parag Patel wrote:
> It's fairly simple, other than dealing with the
> various motherboard/chipset vagaries.
So far those vagaries are not much code, something like 200 lines tops.
> It's possible to make a complete BIOS based on Linux that in turn loads
> and boots anothe
On Tue, 20 Jun 2000 07:06:36 +0900, "Daniel C. Sobral" wrote:
>
>And, in the process, they are teaching the firmware about Ext2FS,
>Ext3FS, RheiserFS, (in our case) ffs, vinum, etc, so it can find the
>kernel in whatever place it is, or resorting to some sort of bootfs
>(though any software RAID w
Parag Patel wrote:
>
> It can't, without shitloads of drivers. :)
>
> ("I asked you not to tell me that, Ninety-Nine!")
>
> A new loader would need to be written that would have a way to talk to
> whatever firmware is in the box, Open Firmware, LinuxBIOS, etc.
> (Assuming that the firmware has
On Mon, 19 Jun 2000, Ronald G Minnich wrote:
> On Mon, 19 Jun 2000, Neil Blakey-Milner wrote:
> > On Thu 2000-06-15 (15:25), Ronald G Minnich wrote:
> > 'linuxbios' will only support booting off Linux partitions?
>
> linuxbios is getting to be a misnomer, but ...
>
> linuxbios is a simple chunk
On Mon, 19 Jun 2000, Neil Blakey-Milner wrote:
> On Thu 2000-06-15 (15:25), Ronald G Minnich wrote:
> 'linuxbios' will only support booting off Linux partitions?
linuxbios is getting to be a misnomer, but ...
linuxbios is a simple chunk of FLASH-based code that gunzips a kernel
image to RAM. T
On Mon 2000-06-19 (11:45), Neil Blakey-Milner wrote:
> 'linuxbios' will only support booting off Linux partitions?
>
> I doubt they're replacing a multi-purpose, occasionally
> not-all-that-clever thing, with a single-purpose very-often
> not-all-that-clever thing?
Ah wait, having read a bit mor
On Thu 2000-06-15 (15:25), Ronald G Minnich wrote:
> well linuxbios is what I started here, and I pinged some folks on this
> list about supporting freebsd as well as linux, and got a 'no interest'
> back from some folks.
>
> I'm still up for it. I think it's easy.
'linuxbios' will only support
> > My mistake, as Ron pointed out, since loader uses the BIOS services, it
> > can't run when there is no BIOS. Now if someone writes a loader that
> > doesn't use a BIOS...
>
> Err... how is a loader that doesn't use BIOS going to access the hard
> disk? I truly hope the answer is not to the e
On Mon, 19 Jun 2000 13:49:36 +0900, "Daniel C. Sobral" wrote:
>
>Err... how is a loader that doesn't use BIOS going to access the hard
>disk? I truly hope the answer is not to the effect of requiring
>shitloads of drivers.
It can't, without shitloads of drivers. :)
("I asked you not to tell me t
Parag Patel wrote:
>
> On Sat, 17 Jun 2000 07:35:51 +0900, "Daniel C. Sobral" wrote:
> >
> >Loader(8) runs using BIOS services, and loads the kernel from any drive
> >that BIOS recognizes. It has also been enhanced with PXE knowledge, so
> >he can load from that to.
>
> My mistake, as Ron pointe
In message <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> "Daniel C. Sobral" writes:
: If your BIOS project recognizes the flash card as a disk, accessible
: with normal BIOS functions, then loader can work as is (minus whatever
: you need modified). If not, it can be changed to understand whatever you
: have to access the
In message <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Parag Patel writes:
: manage their rack-mount systems remotely using the serial port without
: video and without a keyboard - something that few motherboards support.
Might I point out that there is the console weasil (or something to
that effect) that converts memo
In message <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Ronald G Minnich
writes:
: synergy micro sells power pc boards that boot linux today out of flash.
:
: www.synergy.com
:
: They get it too.
I boot FreeBSD out of flash every day. It isn't a big deal at all.
I've been doing this for at least 6 months.
I've done
If you start out with a board based on a reference design, say the Intel
SE440BX, you already have access to all this info. Most chipset vendors have
info on this sort of thing up on their webpage, I know intel is really good
about this sort of thing (though I am not so sure about the 810/815/820/
> On Sat, 17 Jun 2000 07:35:51 +0900, "Daniel C. Sobral" wrote:
> >
> >Loader(8) runs using BIOS services, and loads the kernel from any drive
> >that BIOS recognizes. It has also been enhanced with PXE knowledge, so
> >he can load from that to.
>
> My mistake, as Ron pointed out, since loader us
On Sat, 17 Jun 2000 07:35:51 +0900, "Daniel C. Sobral" wrote:
>
>Loader(8) runs using BIOS services, and loads the kernel from any drive
>that BIOS recognizes. It has also been enhanced with PXE knowledge, so
>he can load from that to.
My mistake, as Ron pointed out, since loader uses the BIOS se
>So, I repeat: easily done, not acceptable to freebsd core.
As has been mentioned by several people already, 'freebsd core' hasn't
discussed this as a group and hasn't made any declaration of acceptabilty.
That said, I'll say (as a core member, but representing only myself) that
I think th
On Sat, Jun 17, 2000 at 06:13:32PM +0100, void wrote:
> On Thu, Jun 15, 2000 at 07:29:53PM -0700, Mike Smith wrote:
> >
> > If your customer's not _desperate_ for a super-low-cost solution, I'd
> > suggest any of the Intel boards that offer EMP (most of these also offer
> > BIOS-over-serial supp
On Thu, Jun 15, 2000 at 07:29:53PM -0700, Mike Smith wrote:
>
> If your customer's not _desperate_ for a super-low-cost solution, I'd
> suggest any of the Intel boards that offer EMP (most of these also offer
> BIOS-over-serial support, actually - as do a number of other vendors,
> IIRC AMI do
On Sat, 17 Jun 2000 07:35:51 +0900, "Daniel C. Sobral" wrote:
>
>Ronald G Minnich wrote:
>>
>> my bad. Anyway we're going to try a kernel next week that parag sent me.
>
>Mmmm. I saw no comments on my loader question.
>
>Loader(8) runs using BIOS services, and loads the kernel from any drive
>tha
Ronald G Minnich wrote:
>
> my bad. Anyway we're going to try a kernel next week that parag sent me.
Mmmm. I saw no comments on my loader question.
Loader(8) runs using BIOS services, and loads the kernel from any drive
that BIOS recognizes. It has also been enhanced with PXE knowledge, so
he c
Wes Peters wrote:
>
> Sergey Babkin wrote:
> >
> > Eh ? I don't quite get how Sun could be associated with Open Firmware.
>
> Probably because they developed it?
Ah, that was my ignorance. never knew that Open Firmware is a trademarked
concept, like Open Source.
> > It always looked quite pro
[not on list]
Regarding the freebsd bios and availablity of firmware you should check out
http://developer.intel.com/technology/efi/index.htm
The sample implementation uses a FBSD core and provides
a tcp/ip stack
ftp client and server
python interpreter
read
http://developer.intel.com
On Fri, 16 Jun 2000, Stefan Molnar wrote:
> I delgated the remote-hands to being my human on-off switch, or a
> "blinky light" monitor.
Buy a bunch of RPC-2s or RPC-4s
http://baytechdcd.com/products/rpcseries.shtml
--
| Matthew N. Dodd | '78 Datsun 280Z | '75 Volvo 164E | FreeBSD/NetBSD |
|
On Fri, 16 Jun 2000, Parag Patel wrote:
> No-one else seems to be interested.
actually, that's not quite true. we're seeing a fair amount of interest
here. I suspect vendors are not that interested in supporting another BIOS
unless/until they see potential $$$ ("value proposition" in MBA spea
On Fri, 16 Jun 2000 11:13:18 EDT, Robert Withrow wrote:
>
>[EMAIL PROTECTED] said:
>:- None of the motherboard or chipset vendors (except for SiS) are even
>:- slightly interested in talking to us.
>
>Are they interested in talking to Linux folks? If so, isn't that a
>reasonable alternative? (I
(paul asks a good microcode question). I can't answer it yet.
Here's my take on this: we're going to do a proof of concept of this idea.
We now have three partners: SiS, Compaq, and Dell. Long-term goal is to
get industry to pick it up. This is a means to an end. I don't want to be
Mr. LinuxBIOS
sorry, jordan.
my bad. Anyway we're going to try a kernel next week that parag sent me.
ron
To Unsubscribe: send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
with "unsubscribe freebsd-hackers" in the body of the message
[EMAIL PROTECTED] said:
:- None of the motherboard or chipset vendors (except for SiS) are even
:- slightly interested in talking to us.
Are they interested in talking to Linux folks? If so, isn't that a
reasonable alternative? (I mean, team up with some Linux folks to
get the info...)
--
Ro
>
> We really were hoping we'd get some help from a motherboard vendor but
> that just hasn't been the case. No-one seems interested in the
> relatively low quantities of boards we'd move.
Too bad we're already a big customer of these boards -- We'd love to have
this kind of information about
On Thu, 15 Jun 2000, Doug White wrote:
> On Thu, 15 Jun 2000, Stefan Molnar wrote:
>
> > I have not built clusters over 200 nodes, but I almost never
> > go into the BIOS for configurations. And the systems that
> > I have used, include serial access within the BIOS. And
> > adding PXE ro
Sergey Babkin wrote:
>
> Eh ? I don't quite get how Sun could be associated with Open Firmware.
Probably because they developed it?
> It always looked quite proprietary to me.
Yeah, those IEEE standards are terribly proprietary. IEEE-1275 in this
case. You can find more info at http://www.op
>
> I'm interested, since from reading the linixboot page it seems like
> you can get, essentially, and instant-on rommable FreeBSD if this
> were done, and I can think of lots of things to do with that!
>
I can think of a few useful things too! I might even be able to offer a
bit of help (a
>> The key is that freebsd may need to change a few things to make it
>> bootable from cold hardware. I don't think this is for sure, but it may
>> happen. I hope the team is receptive to such changes ...
>
>ie. "LinuxBIOS won't initialise the system correctly, so you'd better
>clean up after i
> So, I repeat: easily done, not acceptable to freebsd core.
Erm, hello?
I really don't understand this message at all, Ron. As far as I know,
FreeBSD core has expressed NO opinion on this issue whatsoever and
it's therefore highly unfair of you to state that we:
a) Even have a firm opin
> Two words: "forget it".
>
> > I read an article about Linux BIOS project on Slashdot.org. Is there
> > anybody working on FreeBSD BIOS?
> >
> > I really like to see something like 'boot net - install' or serial
> > console. It would be
John Baldwin ([EMAIL PROTECTED]) wrote:
> > The best people to determin if it is nessesary is Yahoo and Hotmail.
> > Since they have worked with these issues in the thousands of machines.
>
> Actually, Yahoo is basically who funded the PXE development as their
> employees did most of the developm
On Thu, 15 Jun 2000, Stefan Molnar wrote:
> I have not built clusters over 200 nodes, but I almost never
> go into the BIOS for configurations. And the systems that
> I have used, include serial access within the BIOS. And
> adding PXE roms will make things nicer on the install front.
> But
Parag Patel wrote:
>
> On Thu, 15 Jun 2000 19:29:53 PDT, Mike Smith wrote:
> >
> >By now, based on the timeframe I've watched you
> >through, I'd say that you should have a board that looks like a plain VGA
> >framebuffer and has a keyboard cable hung out the back, and software up
> >and running.
Ronald G Minnich wrote:
>
> here's what we can. Somebody send a kernel for an L440GX+ that has pretty
> minimal stuff. I'd prefer it to have IDE, no networking, no SCSI, i.e. a
> pretty small thing. I'll try to use it as the payload for linuxbios and
> see if it boots.
I'm cc'ing Mike here so he
On Thu, 15 Jun 2000 19:24:28 PDT, Mike Smith wrote:
>
>Uh. You're kidding me, right?
Well, maybe a little. The L440GX+ board is well-documented with a nice
diagram documenting the IRQ swizzle. The SuperMicro board isn't, so I'm
probably screwed there.
I think it is possible to probe it by put
On Thu, 15 Jun 2000 19:29:53 PDT, Mike Smith wrote:
>
>By now, based on the timeframe I've watched you
>through, I'd say that you should have a board that looks like a plain VGA
>framebuffer and has a keyboard cable hung out the back, and software up
>and running. Build cost at 100 off would p
>
> Well, the main reason we're replacing the BIOS is that we've had several
> requests from people who want relatively sane firmware in their
> computers. :) One of our (potential) customers needs to completely
> manage their rack-mount systems remotely using the serial port without
> video an
> On Thu, 15 Jun 2000 18:49:23 PDT, Mike Smith wrote:
> >
> >8) Actually, the things that really bother me are eg. interrupt routing
> >and the ACPI GPIO bits, since the former is board-specific and you *must*
> >know about it to set PCI up, and the latter is often necessary to do
> >important th
Well, the main reason we're replacing the BIOS is that we've had several
requests from people who want relatively sane firmware in their
computers. :) One of our (potential) customers needs to completely
manage their rack-mount systems remotely using the serial port without
video and without a
On Thu, 15 Jun 2000 18:49:23 PDT, Mike Smith wrote:
>
>8) Actually, the things that really bother me are eg. interrupt routing
>and the ACPI GPIO bits, since the former is board-specific and you *must*
>know about it to set PCI up, and the latter is often necessary to do
>important things like, e
> On Thu, 15 Jun 2000 18:37:51 PDT, Mike Smith wrote:
>
> >ie. "LinuxBIOS won't initialise the system correctly, so you'd better
> >clean up after it"?
>
> More like it ain't complete and is intended to boot Linux, so anything
> that Linux initializes but FBSD doesn't is probably SOL. :)
8) A
Ronald G Minnich wrote:
>
> On Thu, 15 Jun 2000, Sergey Babkin wrote:
>
> > Maybe I'm completely mistunderstanding the subject, but
> > what about EFI (Extendable Firmware Interface) ? It's the
>
> We're looking at it. Do you really believe in reference implementations? I
> don't. I sure hope they
On Thu, 15 Jun 2000 18:37:51 PDT, Mike Smith wrote:
>ie. "LinuxBIOS won't initialise the system correctly, so you'd better
>clean up after it"?
More like it ain't complete and is intended to boot Linux, so anything
that Linux initializes but FBSD doesn't is probably SOL. :)
I'm building a kern
> here's what we can. Somebody send a kernel for an L440GX+ that has pretty
> minimal stuff. I'd prefer it to have IDE, no networking, no SCSI, i.e. a
> pretty small thing. I'll try to use it as the payload for linuxbios and
> see if it boots.
GENERIC should work, presuming that the hardware's b
> Mike Smith wrote:
> >
> > > > I'd suggest you go talk to Parag Patel, who's just wasted about three
> > > > months of his life trying to make SmartFirmware run on _one_ supposedly
> > > > well-documented board. Parag is nobody's fool, and I consider his
> > > > results pretty representative of
Mike Smith wrote:
>
> > > I'd suggest you go talk to Parag Patel, who's just wasted about three
> > > months of his life trying to make SmartFirmware run on _one_ supposedly
> > > well-documented board. Parag is nobody's fool, and I consider his
> > > results pretty representative of the issue.
here's what we can. Somebody send a kernel for an L440GX+ that has pretty
minimal stuff. I'd prefer it to have IDE, no networking, no SCSI, i.e. a
pretty small thing. I'll try to use it as the payload for linuxbios and
see if it boots.
The key is that freebsd may need to change a few things to m
> The best people to determin if it is nessesary is Yahoo and Hotmail.
> Since they have worked with these issues in the thousands of machines.
Actually, Yahoo is basically who funded the PXE development as their
employees did most of the development and testing with PXE and now use
it in product
On Thu, 15 Jun 2000 14:47:32 PDT, Mike Smith wrote:
>
>I'd suggest you go talk to Parag Patel, who's just wasted about three
>months of his life trying to make SmartFirmware run on _one_ supposedly
>well-documented board. Parag is nobody's fool, and I consider his
>results pretty representativ
> So, I repeat: easily done, not acceptable to freebsd core.
And again I tell you, no. Quite acceptable, not easily done. If someone
does it, we'll happily play along. I don't understand why you don't
understand this.
--
\\ Give a man a fish, and you feed him for a day. \\ Mike Smith
\\
> > I'd suggest you go talk to Parag Patel, who's just wasted about three
> > months of his life trying to make SmartFirmware run on _one_ supposedly
> > well-documented board. Parag is nobody's fool, and I consider his
> > results pretty representative of the issue.
>
> Maybe I'm completely mis
I have not built clusters over 200 nodes, but I almost never
go into the BIOS for configurations. And the systems that
I have used, include serial access within the BIOS. And
adding PXE roms will make things nicer on the install front.
But my current system is a single floppy, and that works
Ronald G Minnich wrote:
>
> So, I repeat: easily done, not acceptable to freebsd core.
If you can easily do it, why aren't you? I had thought someone was
actively working on this (because it is SO obviously useful to have fast
reboots in an HA environment).
> It's kind of a shame.
Sure is
In message <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>, Ronald G
Minnich writes:
>So, I repeat: easily done, not acceptable to freebsd core.
Uhm, Ron, I have not seen freebsd core take a stand on this,
and I'm a core team member, so I'm pretty sure they havn't.
I also doubt that they ever would do so.
Remember: Nob
I'm confused. Acceptable to freebsd core isn't really the issue here.
FreeBSD is a volunteer project. If you do the work and submit the code
then 'core' has the option of deciding not to include it but if its
useful people will use it anyway regardless if its 'Official' or not. If
enough people us
On Thu, 15 Jun 2000, Sergey Babkin wrote:
> Mike Smith wrote:
> > I'd suggest you go talk to Parag Patel, who's just wasted about three
> > months of his life trying to make SmartFirmware run on _one_ supposedly
> > well-documented board. Parag is nobody's fool, and I consider his
> > results
synergy micro sells power pc boards that boot linux today out of flash.
www.synergy.com
They get it too.
ron
To Unsubscribe: send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
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So, I repeat: easily done, not acceptable to freebsd core.
I think this situation reflects on the freebsd community and not in a
positive way.
If you care, sometime this year you'll be able to buy motherboards that
boot Linux from flash. SiS is working hard on this and has committed
people and
Mike Smith wrote:
>
> > well linuxbios is what I started here, and I pinged some folks on this
> > list about supporting freebsd as well as linux, and got a 'no interest'
> > back from some folks.
> >
> > I'm still up for it. I think it's easy.
>
> I'd suggest you go talk to Parag Patel, who's j
>
> [EMAIL PROTECTED] said:
> :- and got a 'no interest' back from some folks.
The response was not "no interest", it was "you're totally nuts - this is
not a usefully solvable problem".
> I'm interested, since from reading the linixboot page it seems like
> you can get, essentially, and inst
[EMAIL PROTECTED] said:
:- and got a 'no interest' back from some folks.
I'm interested, since from reading the linixboot page it seems like
you can get, essentially, and instant-on rommable FreeBSD if this
were done, and I can think of lots of things to do with that!
Don't know how much help
> well linuxbios is what I started here, and I pinged some folks on this
> list about supporting freebsd as well as linux, and got a 'no interest'
> back from some folks.
>
> I'm still up for it. I think it's easy.
I'd suggest you go talk to Parag Patel, who's just wasted about three
months of
On Thu, 15 Jun 2000, Stefan Molnar wrote:
> Why? PXE will allow net installs, or diskless. And Serial Console
> is already supported. ( On some high end machines serial console works
> in the prom as well).
well, now you see why i'm not pushing linuxbios too hard in the freebsd
world. If y
well linuxbios is what I started here, and I pinged some folks on this
list about supporting freebsd as well as linux, and got a 'no interest'
back from some folks.
I'm still up for it. I think it's easy.
ron
To Unsubscribe: send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
with "unsubscribe freebsd-hackers"
x27;m not the only one who's noticed, you getting
a bit short with people lately.
>
> > I read an article about Linux BIOS project on Slashdot.org. Is there
> > anybody working on FreeBSD BIOS?
> >
> > I really like to see something like 'boot net - in
Two words: "forget it".
> I read an article about Linux BIOS project on Slashdot.org. Is there
> anybody working on FreeBSD BIOS?
>
> I really like to see something like 'boot net - install' or serial
> console. It would be cool to have dignos
On Thu, 15 Jun 2000, Alexander Langer wrote:
> Thus spake Stefan Molnar ([EMAIL PROTECTED]):
>
> > is already supported. ( On some high end machines serial console works
> > in the prom as well).
>
> Also on low-end machines...
According to pxeboot(8) from 5.0 snapshot:
pxeboot is a modified
Thus spake Stefan Molnar ([EMAIL PROTECTED]):
> is already supported. ( On some high end machines serial console works
> in the prom as well).
Also on low-end machines...
Alex
--
cat: /home/alex/.sig: No such file or directory
To Unsubscribe: send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
with "unsubscrib
Is there
> anybody working on FreeBSD BIOS?
>
> I really like to see something like 'boot net - install' or serial
> console. It would be cool to have dignostics routine, too.
>
> Jung-uk Kim
>
> ---
Hi,
I read an article about Linux BIOS project on Slashdot.org. Is there
anybody working on FreeBSD BIOS?
I really like to see something like 'boot net - install' or serial
console. It would be cool to have dignostics routine, too.
J
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