Re: Booting oskit from linear flash

To: Roland McGrath <roland@frob.com>
Subject: Re: Booting oskit from linear flash
From: Chuck Carlson <sanna@wco.com>
Date: Sun, 31 Jan 1999 14:00:56 -0800 (PST)
cc: oskit-users@fast.cs.utah.edu
In-Reply-To: <199901300103.UAA23210@baalperazim.frob.com>
Sender: owner-oskit-users@fast.cs.utah.edu

On Fri, 29 Jan 1999, Roland McGrath wrote:

> > I'd like to embed oskit into a diskless x86 system with flash memory and
> > no bios.
> > 
> > Does oskit come with a boot loader that can do this?
> 
> No, it does not.  But we are interested in making it possible if it's not
> a huge amount of work.  What kind of boot loader would you use to make
> something bootable from flash memory?

If you are willing to put in a bios used only to aid booting, then you can
get one (SystemSoft and others) which will handle ATA type flash memory
and look like an IDE drive.  In this case, you should be able to put a
loader like Grub or Linux's lilo on the boot sector of the pcmcia card to
finish the job.

If you don't have a bios to help, then you can use linear flash memory and
send the initial chip select to the flash device.  However, one would have
to write some custom software to configure the system before loading a
boot sector loader like lilo.

Seems like a waste to have a bios that is only used in the boot process,
but that seems the easiest way.  Plus your hardware has to be PC
compatible to use an off-the-shelf bios.

Regards,

Chuck Carlson

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References:

Re: Booting oskit from linear flash

From: Roland McGrath <roland@frob.com>