[syslinux] Embedding com32 modules and ldlinux.sys into one file

[Sergii Kolisnyk]

Hi, Tal,

could you answer to 2 questions:
- what is amount of ROM you're intending to use?
(actually 8 MB SPI or parallel NOR flash chip
can contain some minimalist Linux distribution)
- which chip do you plan to flash to, motherboard BIOS
or option ROM?

Also, ROMOS comes without a license, so you'll
have to contact the author for commercial usage.
On other hand, ROMDSK is GPLed, and you can just
comply. I would suggest to actually try both.

For ROM disk sizes greater than 62kB, which can't
fit into a window in low memory, you will need to
use some other memdisk code, utilizing either
protected mode or flash controller in IO mode.

You are welcome,
Sergii

On 19/01/2016, Tal Lubko via Syslinux <syslinux at zytor.com> wrote:
>
>
>> -----Original Message-----
>> From: H. Peter Anvin [mailto:hpa at zytor.com]
>> Sent: Friday, January 15, 2016 8:41 PM
>> To: Tal Lubko; 'Celelibi'
>> Cc: 'For discussion of Syslinux and tftp-hpa'
>> Subject: Re: [syslinux] Embedding com32 modules and ldlinux.sys into
>> one file
>>
>> On 01/14/2016 02:50 PM, H. Peter Anvin via Syslinux wrote:
>> > On 01/13/16 00:13, Tal Lubko via Syslinux wrote:
>> >>
>> >> OK. I'll try that.
>> >> Any thoughts regarding the requirement to store the bootloader
>> inside the BIOS chip?
>> >>
>> >
>> > That is fundamentally up to your BIOS.  The best is to expose the
>> > bootloader in the BIOS as a (readonly) disk drive using standard BIOS
>> > or EFI interfaces.
>> >
>>
>> Now, if you are using EFI, you might just want to consider just running
>> the kernel itself as an EFI executable.
>>
>> If with "bootloader in memory" you mean the whole firmware package,
>> look at EDK2, Coreboot, or uboot.
>>
>> 	-hpa
>>
>
> Hi
>
> Thanks a lot for the answers given.
> I think I should change this conversion topic to "storing the bootloader
> inside the BIOS chip" or something similar.
> I now understand a little bit more about the boot process and see that it is
> more complicated than just Embedding the com32 module into ldlinux.sys.
>
> To summarize the answers, the option I see now are:
>
> 1) Exposing the bootloader in the BIOS as a (readonly) disk drive using
> standard BIOS or EFI interfaces (hpa suggestion).
> This suggestion looks very promising. It probably requires some changes in
> the BIOS. I'm not sure if it requires changes in the bootloader.
> There is one potential problem I see: the bootloader is stored on some
> flashrom chip and the Linux image is stored on a different storage device.
> I think that right now the bootloader assumes they are stored on the same
> storage device. Am I wrong?
> If I'm wrong, how do I tell the bootloader to load the Linux image from a
> different storage device?
>
> 2) The ROMOS project (Sergii suggestion).
> As far as I understand, basically this project creates virtual ROM disk
> image that can be used for the boot sequence. So this is somehow similar to
> hpa suggestion.
> I'll try to play with it a little bit.
>
> 3) EDK2, Coreboot, or uboot.
> I can say nothing about it right now.
>
> Thanks again for your help,
> Tal
>
>
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