[olpc-software] Which BIOS will OLPC have ?

[Jim Gettys]

Yes, we'll be using LinuxBIOS.  And Alan is correct about how the Geode
works.

Some parts of the emulation code are not owned by AMD; some parts are.
I don't yet know if we will be needing to use the (non-AMD) proprietary
parts or not.  

AMD has told us that they are willing to free up code that they own.  I
think we'll bother with this if it turns out that we can have a BIOS
completely free of any closed code (building these modules takes an
obsolete Windows tools no longer commercially easily available, one of
the classics of why open source and free software is better...).  At
which point it would make sense to do so, in my mind.  

The conversation I had with Dave Wahl on this topic was several months
ago; I don't remember exactly which parts of the emulation code were AMD
owned, and which were not.  My memory is that the VESA emulation is not
owned by AMD; we don't plan to use it once we're using fbdev.
                                      Regards,
                                             - Jim


On Mon, 2006-06-05 at 08:51 -0400, Alan Cox wrote:
> On Mon, Jun 05, 2006 at 04:34:07PM +0530, Sunny Sachanandani wrote:
> > I personally think LinuxBIOS is the best choice: It cant boot fast and is 
> > quite lightweight.
> 
> Chunks of the geode PC hardware are emulated by SMM/SMI traps so you actually
> need some quite funky and non-free BIOS firmware blocks.
> 
> Alan
> 
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-- 
Jim Gettys
One Laptop Per Child