Re: [Etherboot-developers] Etherboot 5.1.2rc7 released

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

Doug Ambrisko <amb...@am...> writes:

> Eric W. Biederman writes:
> | I will check it out.  At least with the FreeBSD pxe code someone
> | contributed it depended on headers that are only present on FreeBSD.
> | And that code at least is broken in 5.1.x
> 
> I guess the should be looked at.  I know when I added the FreeBSD support
> back in (the original code came from FreeBSD) I made that support not
> depend on FreeBSD headers.

Nice, then it is just some of the newer stuff that has problems.
  
> | It is nice to know that FreeBSD still works with etherboot.  It would
> | be nice if etherboot did not need FreeBSD specific code but that is
> 
> Well I like that I don't have to run a "munger" on the FreeBSD kernel
> to boot it.  I use menus to boot different versions etc.  nbgrub for
> example can take a raw bzImage and boot Linux.  It also can
> take a raw {Free,Open,Net}BSD kernels.  So I just have sym-links
> into those trees.  Then when I netboot them I just do a make depend &&
> make && make install && reboot and then boot the new kernel.
> I also like the PXE environment for DOS a little better since 
> I can just run mtools on the image that PXE downloads.  I've had
> some issues with mknbi not working with some DOS programs but
> the PXE stuff just worked.  I think it was PC Doctor (a PC diags
> program) that blew up.

I agree that needing a "munger" is imperfect.  Though when I am putting
together a kernel a ramdisk and a command line, a munger is not a real
problem.  I probably just want to build the munger capability into
the tftp server.  My main problem with setups that I cannot use
the generic code paths with is that over time they mutate.  And
updating ROM images can be non-trivial.  So with a munger I can
convert things into a standard format.  
 
> The biggest thing I like about Etherboot is that all the source is
> there so I can add code to drive special hardware and select 
> manufacturing or normal boot modes and then stick that into
> a system BIOS and build a customized psuedo firmware especially
> when I don't have source the the system BIOS.  Even then building the
> system BIOS can be a pain if you require DOS or OS/2 to build it.
> Etherboot can easily be built.  I am starting to migrate some things
> to PXE using the PXE patches for isc-dhcp.  The biggest draw back is that
> PC stuff uses the VGA/kernel for the console.

The two stage PXE boot has always been annoying to me.
 
> | another issue.  Do you know if there is any interest in running
> | FreeBSD under LinuxBIOS?
> 
> Probably.  We might use it in our product assuming is supported our
> chipset.  Having a BIOS that worked through the serial port and have
> not worry about CMOS setting would be a good thing.  We use the
> i845E chipset in our next generation hardware.

I don't know if anyone has done an i845E port yet, but I don't
see it in the tree.  I am just polishing off the iE7500 port.
Component wise that should be very similiar.  

The tricky thing with FreeBSD has been that LinuxBIOS has a table
of values it provides the kernel, and then it loads an ELF formated
image (normally etherboot) that boots the kernel.  People who have
looked at FreeBSD report that it then goes and attempts to make
BIOS calls.  Since BIOS calls tends to be one of the buggiest parts
of the BIOS I don't LinuxBIOS currently does not implement them.

Although that situation may be changing in the near future.  Someone
is working on getting a BIOS emulation layer going so they can boot
windows XP.

Eric