Supporting extension ROMs and beyond...

[Steve Gehlbach]

Adam Agnew wrote:

> No one really wants LinuxBIOS to support legacy BIOS services. However,
> the need for them keeps creeping in (I believe Ron plans to add int15 to
> have better support for some vga roms). 

True, and too bad if any int's are added, I agree with Linus' original 
comment that "we don't need no stinking BIOS...", but I agree that 
reverse engineering these complex VGA chips is no easy task.  However, I 
am going to continue to do it as I have time.  I don't know if there is 
a good argument for this other than religious convictions.  I seem to 
get a certain amount of self satisfaction out of booting linux without 
ever going into 16-bit mode, save the first instruction or two.  And it 
is disconcerting to see that linux is starting to use BIOS calls in some 
places, like power management stuff (AFAIR).

-Steve