Open Source BIOS?

[Tyson Sawyer]

On 4/16/07, Ted Roche <tedroche at tedroche.com> wrote:
> Has anyone got practical experience with these projects? I'd be
> interested to hear how they are actually progressing from someone with
> on-the-silicon experience.

I developed an early version of LinuxBios which runs on some of the
military iRobot products.  The short version is that it can be a lot
of work.  Chipset documentation is the key to good support.  If you
choose your hardware based on existing good support, you may do well.
If you choose hardware that isn't supported keep in mind that there
may be a good reason  that its not supported.  Some of the setup of
these chips can be very opaque.

LinuxBios takes a very pragmatic approach.  It initializes the chips
that Linux can't or doesn't, loads either a kernel or a kernel loader
and then lets the kernel to the rest.  It attempts to not duplicate
work.

Cheers!
Ty

-- 
Tyson D Sawyer

A strong conviction that something must be done is the parent
of many bad measures.   - Daniel Webster