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?


		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. 
> 
> -- 
> Wilko Bulte 					Arnhem, The Netherlands	  
>     						WWW : http://www.tcja.nl 
>