Re: [PATCH] Add APM BIOS detection/Multiboot passing to 0.5.96 forLinux Multiboot support

[OKUJI Yoshinori]

From: Matt Yourst <address@hidden>
Subject: Re: [PATCH] Add APM BIOS detection/Multiboot passing to 0.5.96 
forLinux   Multiboot support
Date: Sat, 30 Sep 2000 17:59:26 -0400

> Thanks for your suggestions; I've attached a revised patch that
> includes them. I adjusted the ChangeLog entry to be in the proper
> format and updated the copyright notice in stage2/asm.S. I also added
> the APM structure to multiboot.texi and extended the video mode
> information table to include everything Linux needs to use VESA frame
> buffers.

  Thanks. BTW, you shouldn't modify THANKS or NEWS. This is a task for
the maintainer but not you. Don't you think that it is strange for you
to thank yourself? ;)

> In the future, we will need to add the actual code to check for a VESA
> BIOS, fill in this mode table and then pass it on to the kernel. Right
> now GRUB does not do this, so Linux (with my multiboot patch) has to
> guess the correct video mode using hard-coded values. This means that
> Linux works fine but does not display any blinking cursor in text
> modes. Other than this, the kernel works exactly like it did without
> multiboot.

  That's right. We have code for VESA support by Per Lundberg, but I
haven't applied it yet, because it was buggy and we needed to discuss
more about what information a Multiboot boot loader should pass to a
kernel and what format is good. I'll reread the VESA spec for the
discussion, once I have spare time. Unfortunately, however, I have an
urgent task currently, so I don't think I will be able to work on it
in 10 days.

Okuji