> From: David Brownlee <abs@netbsd.org>
>
> 	Would it be feasible to build a special multa bootloader that
> 	used the old buggy milo PALcode to load the kernel? Once was
> 	loaded everything could switch to SRM?

Uhh, if you had SRM, you wouldn't be booting from ARC. If you were booting
from ARC, there would be no SRM to switch to. And you boot from ARC
using the NT palcode, by making ARC callbacks...the thing you need the
OSF/1 palcode for is running the kernel, not for booting it.

Or did I completely misunderstand the question?

>
> 		David/absolute
>
> On Tue, 15 Feb 2000, Wilko Bulte wrote:
>
> > On Tue, Feb 15, 2000 at 02:14:12PM -0500, Jon Lindgren wrote:
> > > On Tue, 15 Feb 2000, Guan Yang wrote:
> > > 
> > > > The guy who wrote http://www.multimania.com/multia uses Linux, and he
> > > > boots that weird operating system from an IDE drive in his Multia. He
> > > > confirmed this to me via email.
> > > > 
> > > > But the NetBSD FAQs suggest that this is not possible; perhaps only
> > > > Linux can boot from IDE on Multia?
> > > 
> > > I believe this stems from the fact that NetBSD boots from the SRM, while
> > > Linux boots from the ARC.  IIRC, the ARC firmware understands how to talk
> > > to the IDE controller while the SRM doesn't.  Using the ARC for NetBSD
> > > requires that we write a new piece of abstraction code (the PAL, I think),  
> > > which I believe to be rather difficult.  I think Linux either 1) has a
> > > custom one, or 2) uses the NT PAL code.
> > 
> > Linux uses an old PAL code from the EvaluationBoard days (IIRC). To make
> > things more fun PALcode tends to be heavily machine dependent.