Re: Update Multiboot spec

[Yoshinori K. Okuji]

On Friday 08 July 2005 06:31, James Buchanan wrote:
> Is anyone working on an updated Multiboot specification?

I don't think so.

> If no, I think we should start one and make a page for it on the GRUB-2
> devel wiki.  It should have extra options to scan for the MP structure
> on IA-32 machines, generalize the video options as much as possible
> (give framebuffer address and device and manufacturer IDs, bus and
> function number, something like that -- would it work for PowerPC and
> other machines?), options for detecting all hardware (e.g. linked
> structures saying I found so-and-so PCI cards, so-and-so type of
> graphics/sound/ethernet cards, monitor type and ID, this system has
> ACPI, CPUID for IA-32, things like that.)

In principle, we do not want to use the Multiboot Specification as helper 
functions. It is a boot protocol, but not an OS library. For example, CPUID 
is not necessarily useful to probe in a boot loader, since operating systems 
can probe it after the control is passed. There is no reason why a boot 
loader must handle it.

The most important goal of the next version of Multiboot Specification is 
portability. There are some ideas about this, but not decided yet. I hope you 
could help this.

Okuji