[coreboot] LinuxTag 2008 Status

[Carl-Daniel Hailfinger]

On 30.05.2008 22:44, Jordan Crouse wrote:
> On 29/05/08 14:58 -0700, ron minnich wrote:
>   
>> Wow, wonderful job to all at LInuxTag! Thanks to you all!
>>
>> I just ran the bayou demo and it is really impressive. I wonder if
>> there is anything else like it? It's really neat.
>>     
>
> Thanks.  There is still much to be done, but I think this is a pretty
> good start.. :) To that end, let me solicit the help of the community to
> think about the next step. 
>
> As a group we have identified two main behaviors for the chooser:
>
>  * An interactive menu
>  * Chaining (running one payload after another in the fashion of a 
>  traditional BIOS)
>   

Absolutely.

> But when you look closer, the number of possible modes explodes.  As an
> example:
>
>  - You may want to add a timeout to the menu, so that if somebody doesn't
>  press the hotkey, a default payload is chosen.
>   

Reasonable.

>  - When chaining, some payloads will be opt in (press F1 for setup), some
>  will be opt out (press F2 to skip), and others will always run
>   

Reasonable as well.

>  - Uwe expressed a desire to select a chain from the menu
>   

No offense, but IMHO that is a bit overboard.

> Everything is further complicated by the fact that we can add a new payload
> to the LAR at any time, which makes it very difficult to specific the
> configuration at bayou compile time.
>   

Maybe just store a default configuration at compile time and retrieve
settings from NVRAM or from a continuously-changing zone in flash?

> So, this is a very long and complex way of saying that we need a simple
> yet clever way to configure bayou that takes into account all of the
> above.  Any ideas?
>   

See above.

Regards,
Carl-Daniel