Uwe Hermann - LinuxBIOS with X11 server, completely in Flash ROM - Comments

the idea is fine

a tryer — Mon, 23 Mar 2009 15:26:54 +0100

the idea is fine but:::

Support the screen driver ??? finding ans setting resolution in debian 2009 lenny disapeared (x11 in 800x 600 ) sounds a waste

network drivers ?? wifi is nice of coarse but in etch there was no working wifi in lenny it does not work unless you have an unsafe wifi network web /wpa/wpa2 not supported

what is left of the nice x11 diskless x server ?

just a dream lost in incompatibilities!!!!!!]

OFW

Uwe Hermann — Sun, 21 Oct 2007 22:14:36 +0200

It's actually now possible to use Open Firmware as a payload of LinuxBIOS (i.e. on top of LinuxBIOS). I'm not an OFW expert, so I can't say how well OFW works on non-Sun (standard x86) boxes, though...

Uwe.

sun os boots w forth in rom now open I think

Anonymous — Fri, 19 Oct 2007 23:24:59 +0200

its fast too and if its open as I think it is
it would be cool
forth is compact and easier than assembly
this gives sun os as fast suspend that linux can
still not do
its now used in the olpc ox
could be a good option for linux maybe

new RXVT site

Anonymous — Fri, 21 Sep 2007 17:22:51 +0200

the rxvt site url changed to http://www.rxvt.net/ or http://rxvt.sourceforge.net/
A full listing is on http://freshmeat.net/projects/rxvt/

ssh and nx (XDMP issues)

Anonymous — Mon, 13 Aug 2007 00:11:26 +0200

no, no...

use ssh -YC to tunnel your X clients through ssh (and compressed).

If the OP wants the whole "X Server in a box" experience then yes, you need something like XDMP, but it's been disabled by default on modern Linux distro's now, because it's a huge security hazard, and most Linux graphical machines are only used as desktops, with local clients.

You could turn XDMP on, or better yet, you could use FreeNX on your server and add an NX client for Linux into the BIOS image one of these beauties. NX is also faster than raw X or RDP (or VNC). Have a look.

Honestly though the gripes are just silly troll bait. Ten minutes (or maybe an hour) of research would have got you this information yourself, and saved your Redmond dollars. It's not rocket science, and it's not an exclusive club.

I don't understand the

Anonymous — Thu, 15 Mar 2007 17:46:16 +0100

I don't understand the problem...

Say you have a server A running Linux. It doesn't have to be running X, but needs to have X installed.

I'd just:

ssh A

And then in the terminal, run, e.g. xclock, and an xclock should pop up on your screen. The same with firefox, etc.

Amiga: no, not all in rom.

Amigamous — Tue, 13 Mar 2007 15:54:29 +0100

Only the lower levels of the Amiga OS were in the "kickstart" rom, the rest was loaded off the "workbench" diskette or hard disk drive partition (actually, the kickstart image was copied from (slow) rom to shadow ram too - after cold boot, one could "softkick" a replacement image in place - handy).

The rom image DID contain enough of "intuition" (the amiga GUI system) to do quite a bit of useful stuff (at the time, most amiga games and some applications shipped as directly bootable disks), but (only just) not enough to even dump you at an amigashell prompt (could dump you at the serial port debugger prompt...)

The idea can be taken further

Mark Walters — Tue, 13 Mar 2007 02:47:12 +0100

Using this development, you can store the main OS in the BIOS, and use a flash card as a personality chip that customizes the OS to the user's specification, ie. flash drive, SD card, etc.

Think of the possibilities - rock up to an internet cafe, insert your personality chip, and boom - service the way you want it.

The applications for this are really endless. It just goes to show, small and simple is powerful.

X11 Client

Paul Wolfson — Mon, 12 Mar 2007 22:00:24 +0100

I feel very frustrated recently because X11 clients (running on the Linux server - yup bass-ackwards) using XDM protocols sometimes work sometimes not. I had it working in Fedora Core 5 from both Fedora Linux and from Windows using Cygwin. Fedora 6 came along and it broke.

Here are my frustrations:
1. 15 years ago this stuff worked fine under Solaris or Sun/OS, MIPs and HPUX.
2. Most of my linux work can be done over ssh (or putty) to the server, but GUI and Windows has made this somewhat harder so I'd like to open an X-Window to a remote server on occation. Every time its a hair pull.
3. For many years you couldn't do RDP reliably in the Microsoft World, but now it works like a hose.
4. I am tired of hearing from unix/Linux hads, well... if you were a real unix guy you'ld know who to fix this stuff.
5. I grudgeingly send Microsoft money when I have to but I really like access to source code when I need it.

My Conclusions:
1. Either I am frightfully ignorant of the X11 Server - X11 Client protocols and need help.
2. I need to learn to love Redmond Washington and RDP.
3. Just admit that if I want GUI's and linux on my servers, I need expensive KVM over IP switches.
4. Is there a branch at Xorg that I need to look at to learn how to do this correctly?

Cheers,
Paul

Excellent

jontech109 — Mon, 12 Mar 2007 18:35:01 +0100

I like the idea of the less is more environment. I've been running DSL (Damn Small Linux) from a 128 meg thumbdrive for awhile now. I love the idea of carrying your OS in your pocket and any portable apps you need are right there.
Getting a working environment down to 2 megs, really bucks the whole trend of big bloated OS's, that really do nothing to enhance productivity. Can't wait to see where this goes.

NX Clients

Skinkie — Sat, 10 Mar 2007 20:36:29 +0100

If it all fits it should be a push to get NX into X.org. Have diskless clients, less overhead, great speed.

Flash/LinuxBIOS internet appliance?

Mr. Pwnage — Sat, 10 Mar 2007 18:45:07 +0100

You could easily take this idea, and make an internet appliance, using an IDE flash card... EPIA board, and LinuxBIOS.
The boot time/performance would be excellent even with such a low-end machine.
Not to mention, the possibilities for a development box?
Having one of these for every coder, with a good robust text editor, and connecting them to a compile farm (i.e. a couple of good multiprocessor x86 boxen) would result in reduced hardware costs for software developers. For web development, it would literally be as easy as having gvim and firefox on the machine, you could theoretically do some serious work on it. "Dedicated" Linux boxes (i.e. anything single-purpose) would benefit from this technology. Third-world countries could use this sort of thing on old refurbished boxes to breathe new life into old hardware.

Boot via ROM

Uwe Hermann — Sat, 10 Mar 2007 17:42:16 +0100

Well, sure, that's the standard case -- you use LinuxBIOS to boot a kernel which resides on your hard drive (whether IDE or SATA or Compact Flash (IDE) or whatever)...

Remote BIOS access

Uwe Hermann — Sat, 10 Mar 2007 17:40:46 +0100

You can quite surely do that with LinuxBIOS. Use a kernel with TCP/IP support and a small ssh server (dropbear?), that's it... I haven't tried it yet, but it sure sounds doable...

Diskless clients

Uwe Hermann — Sat, 10 Mar 2007 17:39:21 +0100

Yep, such a scenario is indeed possible, I guess. You can do this already with a small Linux box, but completely from flash is even nicer...

LinuxBIOS with X11 server, completely in Flash ROM

Uwe Hermann — Wed, 07 Mar 2007 04:10:27 +0100

Now, this is one cool project (and video) from Alan Carvalho de Assis (and friends), as announced on the LinuxBIOS mailing list: LinuxBIOS with X Server Inside (YouTube video).

The setup: LinuxBIOS + a Linux kernel + BusyBox + a tiny X11 server (Kdrive) + the Matchbox window manager + rxvt.

All of this in a normal BIOS chip (2 MB), without any hard drive connected (who needs hard drives when you can fit everything in the BIOS just fine)...

The thing boots into BusyBox in less than 6 seconds, then in ca. 2 seconds into X11 + rxvt. There's probably even room for improvement there...

It seems there will be an OGG Theora version of the video soon, and I hope a small HOWTO about the project, too.

More LinuxBIOS-related screenshots and videos are available in the wiki btw., and a bunch more will follow soon...