Supporting extension ROMs and beyond...

[ron minnich]

On Sat, 9 Aug 2003, SONE Takeshi wrote:

> Then it's convenient to have a few more INTs and generic PCI ROM
> enabling routine to enable the SCSI adapter. That code would be
> simple and small anyway.

It doesn't bother me. I am fine with it. I believe that the VGA BIOS 
support can be used for this as well, with very little extra work.

> Then, at this point, why not adding a simple code to load IPL and
> jumping it in real mode? It's smaller than a printk.

Sure. 

Eric is concerned that it not be in the "core". I am willing to call it a 
compiled-in extension if everyone is ok with that. We could have a 
src/extensions directory, and put items such as the VGA BIOS support etc. 
in there. Such extensions have to be explicitly enabled. The static device 
mechanism gives us an easy way to hook into them.

But for reasons of space at least, I would really like to keep the ability
to compile VGA BIOS support directly into linuxbios. The ELF chaining that
Adam mentioned, while interesting, is complex enough to worry me.

Takeshi did I apply your last patch to VGA BIOS support? Can you check? 

thanks

ron