Hi, I've been working on a project where we are using linux as an operating environment for some setup work prior to booting windows. our control flow looks like this reset => (1)linux & linux aplication? => (2)kexec => (3)proprietery 16bit real code (uses bios) => (4)ntloader => (5)Windows I have come into this project in the middle, however I've seen enough to understand that its not an easy task to run bios calls after linux, especially int13 and power management stuff. The contractor that has been working on this prior to me, used Grub-for-DOS as glue code to get most machines to boot correctly. i.e. kexec-tools loads Grub-for-DOS (GFD) and our proprietery pre-windows real mode code (I'll call that the real mode "stuff" from here on); kexec starts GFD, which then starts the RM "stuff" that does some thing and then finally kicks off ntloader and Windows. It seems as though Grub-for-DOS does some magic since if we simply load our RM STUFF using some simple pergetory code to switch us into real mode the processor goes off into the weeds when we call BIOS int13; not on all machines of course, but many more than with GFD. I'll also say that we are working off of an older version of kexec-tools, say 6mo to 1year ago. QUESTIONS: 1) Is GFD the defacto way of running BIOS calls after linux (chain booting DOS or windows) or has the kexec team or anyone else gotten some a simpler program to go from linux to realmode (and BIOS)? Any pointers to previous work or helpful hints would be greatly appreciated. 2) It would be best if our linux application that runs before kexec call kexec directly*. Thus has anyone thought to provide a kexec-tools-lib and an api such that programs can acess the same high level utility of the kexec program just as easily as from the shell? This would be a great help.? Are the "kexec-tools-powers-that-be" interested in that being integrated into your project? (if we contributed it or part of it) * I'll just add that we would like to pass pointers to the buffer (of code that is loaded) directly to the kexec user program instead of having to store them somewhere (in a file) and then let the kexec program retrieve them (i'm talking about our Real Mode STUFF that runs before windows and after linux). Apologies if you have discussed this before, I've looked through your archives quite a ways back and didn't see anything that exactly answered my questions. thanks for your help. Mike C Michael Sundius Solico Group LLC 232 Nevada St San Francisco, CA 94110 msundius at sundius.com (415)608-0121 http://www.sundius.com
