Re: Everyone's SRM woes

[Alan Young <ayoung teleport com>]

What about adapting the Bochs x86 CPU emulator (http://www.bochs.com) to work
in place of the "alternative" x86 emulator that has source code in the MILO
package?  This could be a good starting point as it does boot win9x and can
emulate a Pentium to some degree.

Alan

alvin wrote:
> 
> Rich Payne wrote:
> >
> > >
> > > Because the source for MILO is generaly available and it is based on the
> > > linux kernel, new drivers can be added reasonably easly. For the same
> > > reason bugs can be fixed when they crop up.
> >
> > The source is available yes, and several people continue to work on
> > it. However, the x86 emulator included with it is binary only and guessing
> > from its age, will do no better than older SRMs with newer video cards
> > etc....I suppose if somebody wanted to they may be able to use the x86
> > emulator that the XFree86 guys use, but I'd imagine this to be a major
> > undertaking.
> 
> What is the current version of SRM using? Would it not be possible to
> get a more current x86 emulator from the previous source. On the other
> hand other than bugs I don't think the x86 instruction set has changed
> in the last few years.
> 
> > > MILO has some problems with setting up some motherboards. The usual
> > > answer I get to questions about MILO are "well just use SRM it is there
> > > and works".  I think this discussion is evidence that althought SRM is
> > > there it does not allways work.
> > >
> > > Would it not be worth the while of the Alpha community to try and find a
> > > single boot loader and get it working with all the various motherboards.
> > > Somthing that the community as a whole can support. Right now there are
> > > at least 4 different loaders with various levels of support.
> >
> > Also there's no EV6 support in MILO, so that would have to be added, and I
> > think MILOs only value in this case is when it could be flashed into the
> > ROM, replacing AlphaBIOS/SRM. If you're just starting it from ARC then I
> > really don't see any advantage.
> 
> Yes MILO needs some work. The issue is to have a single boot loader that
> can be loaded into flash and supported. Right now you can have 5
> diffrent versions of motherboards with 6 different boot loaders.
> 
> I have nothing against SRM. It is just that I would like to see a single
> supportable method for booting linux on alpha not the current cooks tour
> of boot loader technology.
> 
> --
> Alvin Starr                   ||   voice: (416)585-9971
> Interlink Connectivity        ||   fax:   (416)585-9974
> alvin@iplink.net              ||
> 
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