Date: Mon, 1 Jun 1998 09:56:03 +0100 (BST) From: Doug Rabson <dfr@nlsystems.com> To: Curt Sampson <cjs@portal.ca> Cc: Mike Smith <mike@smith.net.au>, hackers@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: AlphaBIOS documentation Message-ID: <Pine.BSF.3.95q.980601094950.330P-100000@herring.nlsystems.com> In-Reply-To: <Pine.NEB.3.96.980601011341.4124b-100000@ascetic.portal.ca>
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On Mon, 1 Jun 1998, Curt Sampson wrote: > On Mon, 1 Jun 1998, Doug Rabson wrote: > > > > My point is, every time a new type of Alpha comes along, you have > > > to write new PALcode and compile it in to the boot loader. This is > > > not really all that different than having to write and compile in > > > a new device driver every time a new device comes along. > > > > Thats true enough but we can always fall back to SRM console for those > > cases. > > If you can fall back to SRM console, you don't need an ARC or > AlphaBIOS boot loader, and thus don't need PALcode in the boot > loader at all. One boot loader will work on all SRM systems. > > Note that the PALcode in Linux, though similar to OSF PALcode, is > not the same as the OSF PALcode. Falling back to SRM really sucks in most cases. For some motherboards you can't have both SRM and AlphaBIOS loaded at the same time so switching between NT and BSD would not be a good end user experience. On top of that, SRM won't even boot my Miata unless I put the useless DEC 8bit graphics card into it. Since I actually run an X server on this box, this matters to me :-). > > > PALcode is at least small, self-contained and portable between operating > > systems. > > Err...`sort of.' OSF PALcode is portable between Digital Unix and > NetBSD (and presumably FreeBSD, at some point). VMS, NT and Linux > all have their own PALcode. Linux palcode is the same in most important places. It uses the same conventions for PTEs, PCBs, interrupts etc. Linux' milo has an old OSF palcode. Linux will run perfectly well booted from SRM console so it clearly doesn't require extensively customised code. > > > Ideally, DEC would put OSF palcode into AlphaBIOS and make it > > possible to switch to it using 'call_pal swppal'. > > Seems unlikely to me. The whole point of not having SRM console > available is that you can't run DU, and are thus forced to by a > more expensive machine (though with virtually identical hardware) > to run it. I don't want SRM and I don't want to run DU. I just want the palcode. Palcode != SRM. -- Doug Rabson Mail: dfr@nlsystems.com Nonlinear Systems Ltd. Phone: +44 181 951 1891 Fax: +44 181 381 1039 To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-hackers" in the body of the message
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