[LinuxBIOS] Executing Real-Mode Binaries

[Richard Smith]

> Greetings,
>
>  Are there any facilities for linking in and executing real mode binaries? I
> have a 'blob' that I need to execute fairly early in real mode.
>
>  If not its fine, I can start on one...

You want to look at ADLO in V1.  ADLO is a payload that drops back to
real mode an executes the BIOS from the bochs project.

See the wiki for lots more detail.

Since ADLO is just a payload it should come forward into V2 pretty easy.

There aren't many users.  In fact I think I (Bitworks, Inc) has been 
the only user for a long time.  The project that used that is now dead
so I haven't messed withit for a while.

I'll be happy to help you all I can.  What kind of hardware are you
using this on?

One key thing about the current way ADLO works is that you have to
enable the shadow areas of your chipset. (Again see the wiki) and this
is specific to each motherboard so you have to tweak the ADLO code to
eable this.

The ADLO in V1 works for the board that Adam orginally got it working
on.  I have patches that make it work for a Intel 440bx based board. 
But other than that you have to customize it.

There have been some discussions on the list previously of a possible
generic method of enableing the shadow areas for a chipset.  But the
payload boundry makes that somewhat difficult.

Search the archives for "shadow" and I think you will find those
threads.   I don't remember the end result.

So is google looking at using LinuxBIOS on some of it systems?

--
Richard A. Smith