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The ARM ecosystem is really hobbled by the lack of a standard boot loader and device tree mechanism, and the RISC-V ecosystem is heading down the same path. Th
by eschaton 4y ago
The ARM ecosystem is really hobbled by the lack of a standard boot loader and device tree mechanism, and the RISC-V ecosystem is heading down the same path.
There are several good Open Source implementations of IEEE-1275 Open Firmware available now (see https://github.com/openbios https://github.com/openbios for some). Everyone should just use it instead of implementing their own solutions, to keep the boot loader independent of the operating system while still ensuring broad functionality.
- yjftsjthsd-h 4y agoOr UEFI, which works fine on ARM & RISC-V.
- eschaton 4y agoAnd which is also quite a bit more complex, compared to Open Firmware.
- yjftsjthsd-h 4y agoSure; I would have preferred a world where OF won, but that's not where the ecosystem went. And UEFI is... fine, and in this case I think the network effects are worth it.