> On Tue, 11 May 1999 08:20:43 -0700 (PDT),
> John Alvord <jalvo@mbay.net> wrote:
> >On Tue, 11 May 1999, Keith Owens wrote:
> >In one operating system I knew well (IBM's VM) control never passed out of
> >the dump process.
>
> The same thing happens with MVS, ICL 1900, ICL 2900 and any other
> operating system on decent hardware.
>
> >Linux would need a "non-operating system" mode of operation to proceed
> >succesfully. Sounds tough but not impossible.
>
> The tough bit is doing it on hardware which is so badly designed that
> the O/S has to do everything, ix86 falls into that category. We either
> write a completely separate I/O subsystem for dumps or we drop down to
> the BIOS. Using BIOS means all addresses < 1M and single threaded
> mode, followed by a reboot.
>
There is a non-operating system mode of operation during Linux startup...
the lilo code and ilk. Maybe ideas from that could be borrowed. It would
probably support a limited number of devices and probably require a lot of
pre-execution setup work.
john alvord
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