Re: Motherboard design specifically for Linux

Kurt Garloff (garloff@kg1.ping.de)
Tue, 20 Oct 1998 08:17:17 +0200


On Mon, Oct 19, 1998 at 07:46:53AM -0500, Terry L Ridder wrote:
> Hello;
>
> I am interested in hearing what features people would
> want to have on a motherboard/mainboard designed from the
> ground up specifically for Linux.

PCI bus in order to be able to use standard components.
Maybe onboard SCSI.
Optional Multi-CPU support.
21264 bus protocol ? (Which will also be used by AMD-K7 and have the
mechanical design of Slot1.)
Intelligent BIOS: Understanding Minix, VFAT, isofs and _ext2_ makes booting
of any OS very easy. Maybe a part should be flashable just like you can
flash MILO into a DEC Alpha. So you hardcode some Flash management into a
ROM and have the other parts (PCI Card initialization, CPU setup, Hardware
tests, ..., Filesystem interface, ...) flashable.

-- 
Kurt Garloff, Dortmund 
<K.Garloff@ping.de>
PGP key on http://student.physik.uni-dortmund.de/homepages/garloff

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