Date: Thu, 15 Jun 2000 21:15:30 -0400 From: Sergey Babkin <babkin@bellatlantic.net> To: Mike Smith <msmith@freebsd.org> Cc: freebsd-hackers@freebsd.org Subject: Re: Anybody working on FreeBSD BIOS? Message-ID: <39497FB2.33D63EB7@bellatlantic.net> References: <200006152237.PAA00762@mass.osd.bsdi.com>
next in thread | previous in thread | raw e-mail | index | archive | help
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. > > > > Maybe I'm completely mistunderstanding the subject, but > > what about EFI (Extendable Firmware Interface) ? It's the > > new Intel's proposal for BIOS. It's the only thing that will > > be (and is) on IA-64, and also will be retrofitted on the > > 32-bit machines. It's a very flexible thing including extensive > > API, OS-independent loadable drivers, networking, serial console, etc. > > I'm in progress of reading the specs (avaliable from the Intel's > > developer web site), so I don't know more detail yet. The spec says > > that the full source code of reference implementation is available > > for free. By the way, they used FreeBSD as the base of their EFI > > API implementation (libc, networking and other). > > It's still entirely useless without the _board_specific_ initialisation > code, which vendors typically aren't going to just hand out. Right, but why would you want to replace the existing BIOS ? You get it with the board anyway. And the EFI spec requires such things as serial port console support, so they should not be much of issue for EFI-compliant boards. > EFI can layer over an existing PC BIOS (ie. you still need a BIOS), or it > will require board-specific code if it's going to be the native firmware. > > The real issue with replacing a system's BIOS is not the top layer > (services etc.), it's initialisation and random magic that is entirely > specific to the board's actual implementation details. I think it depends mostly on the chipset used, hardly the board manufacturers add much or anything at all. And there are not that many modern chipsets on the market, and seems like their number is reducing over time as Intel gets more involved. -SB To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-hackers" in the body of the message
Want to link to this message? Use this URL: <https://mail-archive.FreeBSD.org/cgi/mid.cgi?39497FB2.33D63EB7>