AMD64: Something's missing?

[Evan Langlois]

> EtherBoot can boot lots of things from the network or an IDE hard disk.
> FILO can boot from IDE hard disk, IDE CDROM, floppy, and maybe more? 9load
> I don't know much about except that it is used to load the plan9 kernel.

I don't know much about FILO.  Can anyone comment on its compatibility with 
the LILO graphical features (displaying graphical menus/splash screens), and 
is there any support available for encrypted filesystems?

Assuming FILO works like LILO, and doesn't know about filesystems, I'm 
assuming encryption would be difficult, and it might therefore be best to 
chain-load another boot-loader, but I'd want the encryption keys to be in the 
ROM to make it as difficult as possible to get to them.

Encryption in the BIOS itself may be a positive feature, not just for 
corporate users that want to protect their IP, but laptop users and such (in 
which case the key would be asked for on boot) that don't want sensitive 
information leaking out just because a laptop was stolen.

-- Evan