Technically, getting information about the display capabilities and
power management settings would be things that the kernel would get
from the BIOS, at start up.  Shared memory is handled by the kernel,
not BIOS, and ACPI stuff is only initialized by the BIOS, not
controlled by it.

Though, I think the thing from years ago being referred to is hard
drive geometry.  Remember having to enter values for heads, tracks,
and cylinders?  I just did that last week on my router machine,
actually.  Argh.  I wonder where I can find a BIOS update for my
unlabeled, probably generic, Socket5 motherboard? :)

--Danny, unhappy with this top-posting thing ;)

Bob wrote regarding 'Re: [PIC] When did MPLAB stop supporting Win98?' on Thu, Nov 24 at 09:55:
> Well, let's see. X wouldn't use all 1024x768 of the display until I
> updated the bios. Battery life went from 1:30 to 2:30. Lid events started
> working. Stuff like that. I think the statement you made about bios was
> true 7 years ago but not today, especially with shared memory architecture
> and ACPI power management.
> 
> Cheerful regards,
> 
> Bob
> 
> >> 2. Dell laptops do have bios updates, and in my case it made a huge
> >> difference to my linux installation but had no visible effect on the
> >> Windows side.
> >
> > Hmm, that's interesting.  What kind of effect do you mean?  Linux only
> > uses the BIOS for information purposes when the kernel is booting.
> > Outside of that, the BIOS is pretty much ignored.  DOSEMU and WINE would
> > be exceptions.
> 
> 
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