Re: [NILO-discuss] Zen and the art of running in real mode

[H. P. A. <hp...@zy...>]

Michael Brown wrote:
>>Dumb question for Michael: do you happen to know of any cards which are
>>known to only have memory apertures?  I'd like to disect their factory
>>PXE stacks and see how they solve the whole dilemma.  That probably sets
>>the _de_facto_ standard for what happens next.
> 
> Only one which isn't yet in production.  The I/O BAR is in the current 
> generation of the product in case it was needed to support PXE.  Since 
> they used Etherboot for the PXE stack, (and consequently weren't 
> restricted to portio, and could get away with essentially reusing the 
> Linux driver), the I/O bar is completely unused and will be removed in the 
> next rev.
> 

That also means, presumably, they're stuck with the Etherboot subset of 
PXE, which would make me guess this is a special-purpose device.  From 
the looks of it, most vendors are keeping or even adding the I/O bar, 
all while cursing the managers at Intel who apparently let a consultant 
come up with the spec without any kind of adult supervision.

	-hpa