[coreboot] GSoC 2010

[Carl-Daniel Hailfinger]

On 08.03.2010 17:35, ron minnich wrote:
> The EFI lesson: if you're going to put an OS in FLASH, at least make
> it a good one.
>
> Otherwise, you get EFI.
>   

Great quote. May I use that as new signature?


> Be careful where you're going here. You're starting to verge on
> creating an OS. If you get that far, at least look at what's out there
> before you go too much further.
>   

In my very humble opinion, a complete flashrom in flash is not a
desirable idea with today's flash sizes and the other restrictions
associated with flashing.
Either you can load flash images from disk/whatever, and then it should
be possible to boot an OS which can run flashrom.
Or you can't load flash images from disk/whatever, and then flashrom in
flash has nothing to flash.

I do care about good design, but if an employer tells me to use a design
I disagree with, I won't refuse to use that design. If this becomes a
GSoC project, the success of the student (me?) essentially depends on
what the mentor thinks is good, so the situation is similar to a workplace.

Some people want an all-singing, all-dancing BIOS/bootloader with BIOS
settings screen, flashrom, a splash screen video, maybe a builtin game
and a disk formatter. If you can thow in a web browser (based on any
personal favourite self-written incomplete closed source
not-an-operating-system (you know which one I mean)), even better. Throw
in some fan control scripts which can make the fans sing and let useful
LEDs on the board blink in patterns synchronized to the music.
A sizable part of the overclocking/modding crowd will _love_ such a
thing regardless of technical merits because it is "cool" and perfect
for bragging.

Regards,
Carl-Daniel

-- 
"I do consider assignment statements and pointer variables to be among
computer science's most valuable treasures."
-- Donald E. Knuth