Fedora-10 killed my computer ...

[John Summerfield]

Danny.Terweij wrote:
> From: "Timothy Murphy" <gayleard at eircom.net>
> 
> 
>> Now, my question is:
>> Was the fact that this happened after running F10
>> a pure coincidence?
> 
>> I'm intending to look at the CMOS battery,
>> and perhaps try re-installing the BIOS.
>> Any other suggestions gratefully received.
> 
> There is no OS known that touching a BIOS. A OS does READ the BIOS. So 
> yes, maybe you need to replace CMOS backup battery.
> 
> Also, on a old mainboard i have just 1 HDD set in bios, rest of the 3 
> HDD's are not set. Still any kind of Linux does see all the drives. So 
> maybe Linux does not read BIOS at all.
> 
> Good luck.

Fair bit of nonsense there:
1. I have systems with Windows XP applications to configure the BIOS. 
Therefore, an OS _can_ touch the BIOS.
2. I don't have information to hand, but there are Linux tools to 
manipulate the BIOS settings, and that may be enough to hide the keyboard.
3. Linux does use the BIOS, just not for everything.
Look at the kernel messages, for strings containing BIOS. This, for example:
parport: PnPBIOS parport detected.
parport0: PC-style at 0x378 (0x778), irq 7 [PCSPP,TRISTATE]

Become geekier, read this:-)
http://www.openfirmware.info/Welcome_to_OpenBIOS

-- 

Cheers
John

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