[OpenBIOS] Probably a dumb question - Intel MB DG45ID

[Tarl Neustaedter]

On 2013-Dec-27, 21:41 , Philip Rhoades wrote:
>
> I have been on this list for some time lurking - just because I think 
> it is interesting that a bit of firmware can allow hardware to be 
> actually useful!  I haven't done more than read the occasional post 
> that was of interest but the thought occurred to me again about 
> replacing the BIOS that is on my current machine with something that 
> is open so I went back to the OpenBIOS home page but was a bit puzzled 
> to see on the Download page: "Do not try to put OpenBIOS in a real 
> boot ROM, it will not work and may damage your hardware!".  After a 
> little more looking around I am still confused - the ultimate aim of 
> this software is to eventually allow people to replace their 
> proprietary BIOSes right?  I have an Intel MB DG45ID but I couldn't 
> Google much overlap with OpenBIOS . .

I'm not one of the OpenBios team (I do OpenBoot at what was Sun 
Microsystems, so I pipe up occasionally with tidbits I've seen), below 
is my understanding of the direction of OpenBios. One of the OpenBios 
folks might speak up and phrase it better.

There are two parts to a boot ROM - initializing the platform-specific 
hardware, and then booting the operating system. OpenBios fits in the 
latter part. Most x86 vendors have their boot ROMs containing highly 
proprietary code to initialize their CPUs, memory and io bridges, before 
they get to the common function of trying to boot their operating system.

Since the code for initializing cpu boards is so highly proprietary (and 
so different board from board), that kind of code isn't in OpenBios. If 
you flash OpenBios into your Boot ROM, your hardware won't get 
initialized and your system will perform the operation we call "turn 
into a brick".