Re: Flash linux into PC bios?

thospel@mail.dma.be
19 Apr 1999 01:55:19 -0000

In article <Pine.LNX.4.04.9904172013390.649-100000@berserk.demon.co.uk>,
Peter Horton <pdh@colonel-panic.com> writes:
> On Sat, 17 Apr 1999, Paul Jakma wrote:
>
>> theoretical question:
>>
>> what would happen if i flashed a linux kernel into the BIOS of a
>> recent pc motherboard, given that the EEPROM is big enough to hold
>> the kernel.
>>
>> would it work. the kernel already can initialise most motherboard
>> chipsets, eg PIIX, VP3, so how much stuff does the bios do that the
>> kernel can't? is there any really low level stuff that needs to be
>> tweaked, eg memory timings, that linux couldn't do?

As a data-point, I once screwed up the bios on an ASUS P2H4 motherboard,
and tried to boot linux when all the system could still do was starting a
boot floppy.

The boot worked succesfully until it had to really read something from the
IDE-harddisk. At that point it failed completely. I did some extra experiments
with forced geometries in lilo, but to no avail.

Still, I was already quite far into the boot, and I suspect that if the IDE
initialization could be done without the BIOS, it would in fact have worked.

(since it got a bit boring, a flashed a working BIOS again :-) )

-- 
Drive A: not responding. Formatting drive C: instead.
.


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