[GRLUG] Cheap Laptop Needed

[Michael Mol]

In a simplified form:

The BIOS handles POST, the Power-On Self Test, to make sure there
aren't any major hardware failures.  It then assigns IRQs to the
devices on the PCI bus.  It then boots the system, be it off the
network via PXE, hard disk, floppy disk or a CD/DVD with El Torito.

If you want the BIOS to do something before loading the system
bootloader, you'd want to do it after assigning IRQs.

On 3/30/07, Bob Kline <bob.kline at gmail.com> wrote:
> OK,  this sounds like a hardware issue.
> i.e.,  there are other ways for the hardware
> to point to the boot software in Linux.
>
> I'll just guess that with a PC motherboard
> it more or less has to be done this way.
>
> What kinds of hardware setup does the
> BIOS have to do?  I guess things like
> DVD/CD drivers have to be available
> somewhere if you're loading a new system.
>
>      -Bob
>
>
>
>
>
>  On 3/30/07, Collin <adderd at kkmfg.com> wrote:
> > To boot it does. And the bios does do some setting up of the various
> > machine hardware. But once the linux kernel is loaded and starts running
> > you can kiss the BIOS goodbye.
> >
> > Bob Kline wrote:
> > > Does Linux even use a machine's BIOS ?
> > >
> > > I don't believe Unix ever did.  Mac OS being
> > > BSD Unix,  that all fits.
> > >
> > >     -Bob
> > >
> > >
> > > On 3/30/07, * Greg Folkert* <greg at gregfolkert.net
> > > <mailto:greg at gregfolkert.net>> wrote:
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > >     4MB is the largest BIOS available in current production. New Intel
> > >     MACs
> > >     don't even have a BIOS.
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > >
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