4 ms·

Kind of cool, but being exclusively for BIOS/MBR kind of kills my excitement.

• seba_dos1 1y ago
  With EFI, you can just boot straight into Linux without any bootloader.
  • NewJazz 1y ago
    Technically there's a pe shim, no?
    • cyberax 1y ago
      You can just package Linux as a PE executable.
      • deleted 1y ago
        [deleted]
      • NewJazz 1y ago
        I guess my point was that the package was in a way a very minimal bootloader. Equivocal, easily.
    • seba_dos1 1y ago
      Part of Linux: https://www.kernel.org/doc/html/latest/admin-guide/efi-stub.html https://www.kernel.org/doc/html/latest/admin-guide/efi-stub....
• nine_k 1y ago
  Yes. BIOS. Real mode. Not that I've been missing them these 30 years, and they are still in place. It gives a weird feeling. I mean, if you target ancient baroque hardware like e.g. ZX Spectrum, you specifically target an ancient machine. But this is expected to work on any modern x86 hardware, while it feels like code for a 80286, and likely would run there. And this ancient stuff is still supported and actively used.
  • musicale 1y ago
    > this ancient stuff is still supported and actively used. It sort of warms my heart that code for the IBM 360 (now IBM Z) and the IBM PC (now x86 PC) can still run on modern hardware decades later. On one hand, we're stuck with the legacy of the past. But on the other hand, we can build on things and don't need to reinvent them unnecessarily.
    • msla 1y ago
      How much emulation is required to get System/360 code running on a modern IBM mainframe? Can the CPUs still run the original 32-bit code? Do CCWs and whatever other peripheral code still work?
      • deleted 1y ago
        [deleted]
      • zokier 1y ago
        Intels X86S proposal[1] gives perspective on this. Both in how there would be reasons to get rid of legacy, and how yet it still got shot down pretty quickly[2]. It's unfortunate that I don't think we ever got more explanation on it's termination, where did the opposition come from [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36013257 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36013257 [2] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42468664 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42468664
        • msla 1y ago
          Did you reply to the wrong person?
      • musicale 1y ago
        Apparently user code can still run: "z/Architecture retains backward compatibility with previous 32-bit-data/31-bit-addressing architecture ESA/390 and its predecessors back to the 32-bit-data/24-bit-addressing System/360." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Z/Architecture https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Z/Architecture