Open source BIOS developed

LINUX DEVELOPERS have managed to come up with an alternative open source BIOS. The techies have combined code from LinuxBIOS and BOCHS-BIOS to come up with a BIOS that works well enough for them to be able to boot Windows 2000 using it.

The personal computer basic input output system (BIOS) was "one of the last bastions of closed source", according to an explanation of the Linix BIOS project here.

According to the new announcement here, the "completely free" software will act as a replacement for the BIOS and "supports (without modification) either LILO or GRUB as bootloaders, and Linux, OpenBSD, and Windows 2000 as operating systems."

The developers say they are working on the BIOS to be able to allow it to boot to FreeBSD and Windows XP. "Improving ATA support will permit Win98 and WinXP to boot," they reckon. "And finishing PIRQ support will permit FreeBSD to boot," they say.

Motherboard support is currently limited, but the hope is that this, too, will expand along with support for LinuxBIOS. µ