Re: why I don't like initrd (was Re: Linux-2.1.92 - Feature Freeze)
H. Peter Anvin (hpa@transmeta.com)
5 Apr 1998 00:23:12 GMT
Followup to: <iszlntlku8j.fsf@dillinger.io.com>
By author: James H Cloos Jr <cloos@jhcloos.com>
In newsgroup: linux.dev.kernel
>
> One solution to bypass the need for initrd would be to port MILO to
> intel. One could use an MBR loader like LILO -- as per ARC on the
> alpha -- to load the milo image, which would then go into protected
> mode and give you your prompt. It could have all the nasty code for
> init'ing PnP hardware, and could pass that info to the kernel image it
> loads.
>
> Among the other benefits, the kernel's size and location would not be
> BIOS limited, you could boot a simple vmlinux or vmlinux.gz file.
>
> I'd be surprised if no one has made any effort in making such a port....
>
> Of course, replacing the BIOS w/ somethigng like SRM or Sun's
> FORTH-based util (I forget what it is called) would be even more
> fun.....
>
There already is a solution for this: EBIOS. Many newer BIOSes
support a new set of system calls without the 1024 limit. Since I
believe at least some versions of Win95 support it as well, it is
pretty universal these days.
Docs are on http://www.phoenix.com/.
-hpa
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