From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Return-Path: Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org via listexpand id S1753047AbXEADl5 (ORCPT ); Mon, 30 Apr 2007 23:41:57 -0400 Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org id S1753009AbXEADl5 (ORCPT ); Mon, 30 Apr 2007 23:41:57 -0400 Received: from ebiederm.dsl.xmission.com ([166.70.28.69]:45477 "EHLO ebiederm.dsl.xmission.com" rhost-flags-OK-OK-OK-OK) by vger.kernel.org with ESMTP id S1751220AbXEADl4 (ORCPT ); Mon, 30 Apr 2007 23:41:56 -0400 From: ebiederm@xmission.com (Eric W. Biederman) To: "H. Peter Anvin" Cc: Andi Kleen , Dave Jones , linux-kernel , Jeff Garzik , Jeremy Fitzhardinge , Linus Torvalds Subject: Re: arch/i386/boot rewrite, and all the hard-coded video cards References: <463698D5.20102@zytor.com> <20070501015115.GJ26601@redhat.com> <4636A332.2070101@zytor.com> <20070501034612.GK25929@bingen.suse.de> <4636B227.2020403@zytor.com> Date: Mon, 30 Apr 2007 21:41:29 -0600 In-Reply-To: <4636B227.2020403@zytor.com> (H. Peter Anvin's message of "Mon, 30 Apr 2007 20:21:11 -0700") Message-ID: User-Agent: Gnus/5.110006 (No Gnus v0.6) Emacs/21.4 (gnu/linux) MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Sender: linux-kernel-owner@vger.kernel.org X-Mailing-List: linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org "H. Peter Anvin" writes: > Eric W. Biederman wrote: >> Andi Kleen writes: >> >>>> Not that the x86 BIOS is bad. It is nearly a marvel in it's simplicity >>>> and ubiquitousness, >>> Simplicity? That must be why x86 motherbords are shipping with (compressed) >>> 8MB BIOS flash chips now. >> >> Those would be 8 megabit chips, and those would be server motherboards >> you are looking. Most likely the ones that are starting to think ahead >> to EFI support. >> > > No, 4-8 MB chips are starting to be deployed, but the bulk is for > OS-less applications. I don't doubt that there are some rare systems with very large capacity flash chips. However the size of all BIOS chips are measured in bits. Anyone talking about the capacity of BIOS chips in bytes and not bits always raises a red flag with me because that is a very common mistake. I would be very surprised if the high volume commodity boards have exceeded 8 megabits. Eric