On Aug 30, 2007, at 9:39 AM, Tamas Rudnai wrote:

> when the linux is in the BIOS' flash memory when you switch on
> your computer linux brings up very fast. The command prompt they
> claim to get up in 3 sec!

I suspect a lot of that is achieved by eliminating a lot of the
self-test and hardware initialization that is traditionally done
by the BIOS in a PC (after all, why bother when most of the modern
operating systems do their own HW discovery and initialization anyway?)
This isn't so much a BIOS as a fast-booting system that replaces the
BIOS :-(

This is a little too bad; the info necessary to write a real BIOS
(and in particular HW initialization) for a modern CPU/chipset tends
to be pretty closely held by the chip vendors, and is not available
to mere mortals.  Having to license a BIOS is a moderately significant
roadblock to offering products based on x86 CPUs that aren't OEMed
PC platforms.

BillW
-- 
http://www.piclist.com PIC/SX FAQ & list archive
View/change your membership options at
http://mailman.mit.edu/mailman/listinfo/piclist