Hi,
> > I bet the RISC/os console is *very* similar to the ARC firmware. Probably
> > the only thing that is different is the byteorder. In that case it will
> > be a snap to port Linux - recompile everything, deactivate the kernel
> > support for the G364 card (needs a bit of hacking) and you should be
> > there.
>
> That would be cool. But I have something in mind that's a little
> different... Would it be possible to emulate the standard IBM PC BIOS
> routines that ISA video cards need?
Yes; I've discussed that recently with someone and he even has already
written the emulation. Aparrently the emulation is not fast bad good
enough to run a UNIX on ...
> I know that DEC Alpha's do this in
> their firmware.
>
> Another thing I was thinking -- have you taken a look at the MILO that
> Linux/ALPHA uses?
Looong ago ... Milo contains a BIOS emulation, btw.
> It is a very nice console that allows standard Linux
> device drivers to be used before actually loading the Linux kernel. This
> in turn makes it possible to boot Linux from any device that a Linux
> device driver exists for. Could we implement something like this for
> Linux/MIPS?
We could, but that would still leave the question open from where we load
the Milo - on the Magnum that will still be either SCSI or floppy ...
and we're back to the original problem.
There is of course some fancy hardware like a P4032 evaluation board which
can use flash memory to boot from ... but that's no Magnum.
Ralf
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