Subject: Re: Q: Compaq, *BSD and 'Linux-only' AlphaBIOS (fwd)
To: Lord Isildur <isildur@guild.net>
From: Matthew Jacob <mjacob@feral.com>
List: port-alpha
Date: 12/03/1999 14:55:45
I agreee.


On Fri, 3 Dec 1999, Lord Isildur wrote:

> 
> I consider SRM to be the way to go, and i think instead the convoluted
> hacks that things like MILO had to go through are the rsult of using the
> ARC/ALphaBIOS _instead_ of using SRM. Now that Compaq has released SRMs
> for so many more models and eliminated the need to buy the developer kit,
> i see no reason to consider ARC anymore _at all_. It was a cheap second
> best rigged up so that NT could work on Alphas, and I dont see why we need
> to try to cater on NT's inadequacies and start using ARC/AlphaBIOS or the
> workarounds to it like MILO. SRM is the 'high class' firmware, whatever,
> it is available and is superior to ARC/AB. BSD has used SRM since the
> beginning- why should we dilute that now, especially when some of the last
> arguments for it have lost their bite? 
> 
> just my $.02, 
> isildur
> 
> On Fri, 3 Dec 1999, Matthew Jacob wrote:
> 
> > 
> > 
> > ---------- Forwarded message ----------
> > Date: Fri, 3 Dec 1999 11:47:27 -0800
> > From: Richard Henderson <rth@twiddle.net>
> > Reply-To: axp-list@redhat.com
> > To: "warp@xs4all.nl" <warp@xs4all.nl>
> > Cc: axp-list@redhat.com
> > Subject: Re: Q: Compaq, *BSD and 'Linux-only' AlphaBIOS
> > Resent-Date: 3 Dec 1999 21:15:44 -0000
> > Resent-From: axp-list@redhat.com
> > Resent-cc: recipient list not shown: ;
> > 
> > On Thu, Dec 02, 1999 at 02:02:29PM +0100, warp@xs4all.nl wrote:
> > > 1) Is anybody planning to make MILO work with NetBSD*;
> > 
> > >From what I could tell from browsing the OpenBSD source, the only
> > thing standing in the way of the BSDs booting off MILO is their
> > reliance on SRM callbacks for printing to the console during the
> > early boot process.  And some bits that read the SRM environment
> > variables to snag the kernel command line and such.
> > 
> > It shouldn't be terribly hard to either implement the SRM callbacks
> > in MILO or (conditionally) avoid them in the BSD kernel.  The former
> > would of course be more helpful.
> 
> certainly, if anyone _needs_ to use BSD with MILO for some strange reason,
> it'd be better to modify MILO than BSD. 
> 
>