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From: James H. <jam...@be...> - 2005-12-22 23:10:41
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I'm (slowly) working on AoE (ATA over Ethernet) support, using Etherboot as a base. The idea is that when the rom executes first, it gives a 'hit ctrl-a(?) for setup' message and if the key combination is hit, enters into a setup screen. Assuming that it is set to be active, it installs the int19 handler and returns control to the O/S. (PnP obviously behaves a bit differently but same sort of thing) The int19 handler then probes drives and assuming a drive is found for this machine, installs an int13 handler and then boots. At the moment I'm stuck in that when the rom vector is called, I want to call 32 bit code to run the setup etc (setup will need to be able to probe drives etc so it needs to pretty much have the whole show running). This much works, but I can't get it to return properly to the operating system... things hang at this point :( A previous incantation was more or less working but was extremely hardcoded (no setup screen etc) and completely butchered Etherboot in a way that made a compile time option (eg make -DAOE_BOOT ne.zrom) an impossibility. It did almost boot linux though. If anyone is intimate with the whole 16 bit / 32 bit thing and might be able to offer some assistance with the bug I'm having, I'd love to hear from you!!! <offtopic> Once I have an AoE int13 driver, which will be enough to boot DOS and bootstrap any O/S with a native AoE driver, I might take a deep breath and have a crack at a Windows driver (the Linux driver already exists and is more than stable). There is a windows driver in the pipeline, but I've had a look at a beta and it seems to come with a huge amount of overhead, and is almost certainly proprietry. I'm sure it will work great and probably perform a lot better than anything I can come up with, but I don't think is something that could be used as the second stage windows bootloader. </offtopic> Thanks James =20 > -----Original Message----- > From: eth...@li... [mailto:etherboot- > dev...@li...] On Behalf Of Marty Connor > Sent: Friday, 23 December 2005 09:17 > To: Etherboot Developers List > Cc: Etherboot Users List > Subject: [Etherboot-developers] Development directions >=20 > Holiday Greetings to everyone! >=20 > As it looks like I will finally have more time to actively work on > Etherboot again, I thought I'd write down some thoughts, and invite > conversation. All ideas are welcome, so feel free to speak up. >=20 > One of the most satisfying things about programming (or really any > collaborative activity) is talking to people who are interested in > it. I've been programming for over 30 years now, and it is still fun. >=20 > So, I've been thinking quite a lot of late about what we can do to > make Etherboot better. > It's a hard question, because it immediately brings to mind the > questions: >=20 > better for who? > better in what ways? >=20 > For me, making Etherboot useful to people is important. Most of the > things I've added to Etherboot have been because I felt they would > allow it to be useful to more people. >=20 > At this point, however, I'm taking a hard look at Etherboot, and > thinking that I'd like to strip out some of the things that have been > added over the years. Just as Mozilla spawned Firefox and > Thunderbird, I'd like to create GPXE from Etherboot. >=20 > Basically, what I have in mind is to create a new module called gpxe, > and take Etherboot 5.4, and using it as a base, strip out things that > don't work, or aren't supported, or that no longer make sense for a > PXE-centric bootloader. >=20 > 5.4 will continue to be actively maintained, of course, and there > have been some really nice contributions lately. One reason to > create another module is because it's really hard to change Etherboot > without disrupting people who depend on one feature or another. >=20 > Speaking of development, Michael Brown is going to be continuing work > on 5.5 in the not-too-distant future, which has a lot of nice > improvements and simplifications, and now seems like a good time to > work on gpxe. Having Michael actively back in the development mix > will be great, as he knows the internals of Etherboot better than > anyone at present. >=20 > I'd also like to find out who else is interested in actively > programming on Etherboot / GPXE. Most of our programming is done by > a few people, and that's probably always going to be the case, just > because it's a rather specialized kind of work. But I also think > that there might be some people who would like to learn, and if there > are, please let me know, or just join in the discussion. Programming > bare-metal and close to the machine can be a lot of fun, and is very > educational. I hope if you have an interest, you'll join this > conversation. >=20 > Another thing that comes to mind is whether the separation between > Etherboot-Developers and Etherboot-Users still makes sense. Given > rom-o-matic.net, I wonder if we should just have Etherboot-Discuss > for people interested in keeping up with the project, and Etherboot- > Announce for people who just want to know about new releases. > Etherboot-Developers has over 100 people on it, but only a handful > actively developing. >=20 > So that's what's on my mind. What's on yours? >=20 > Let's get some conversation going, and see where it leads. >=20 > Warmest Greetings of the Season to all, >=20 > Marty >=20 > -- > Try: http://rom-o-matic.net/ to make Etherboot images instantly. >=20 > Name: Marty Connor > US Mail: Entity Cyber, Inc.; P.O. Box 391827; > Cambridge, MA 02139; USA > Voice: (617) 491-6935; Fax: (617) 491-7046 > Email: md...@et... > Web: http://www.etherboot.org/ >=20 >=20 >=20 >=20 >=20 > ------------------------------------------------------- > This SF.net email is sponsored by: Splunk Inc. Do you grep through log > files > for problems? Stop! Download the new AJAX search engine that makes > searching your log files as easy as surfing the web. DOWNLOAD SPLUNK! > http://ads.osdn.com/?ad_id=3D7637&alloc_id=3D16865&op=3Dclick > _______________________________________________ > Etherboot-developers mailing list > Eth...@li... > https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/etherboot-developers |
