Re: [Etherboot-developers] Q: LinuxBIOS support?

[<ebi...@ln...>]

Christoph Plattner <chr...@al...> writes:

> Hello !
> 
> AFAIK Linux-Bios is a small Linux kernel which is booted directly from
> the
> boot vector. Only a smart chipset setup is done, all other things are
> coming
> from this small linux kernel, as it can handle and drive all i/o
> components,
> as we know :-)
> 
> So this linux kernel also can handle network and bootp/dhcp requests,
> transporting files fia ftp/tftp and mounting NFS roots.
> 
> So I don't know, but possible there is not much up to nothing to do,
> to support netboot here.
> 
> But again, I don't know it very well, as up to now, I have no machine,
> which Linux Bios supports. If I would have one, I only would use Linux
> Bios !!!!

The problem is size of ROM.   As a small linux kernel weighs in at 360KB
getting it on your stock rom of 256KB is next to impossible.  With etherboot
or another minimal bootloader we can get around the small ROM size restriction
and support many more motherboards.

Eric