From: tzs@stein2.u.washington.edu (Tim Smith) Subject: Why linux needs an INT 13h disk driver Date: 8 Jul 1993 10:32:21 GMT
Someone should write an INT 13h disk driver for linux. That would be
a disk driver that uses the BIOS INT 13h function for all disk access.
There are two ways this could be done:
1. Switch to real mode whenever doing an INT 13h request.
2. Maintain a V86 task and run the BIOS code in it.
I work in the SCSI industry, on the controller side of things (I write
SCSI BIOS firmware). From what I've seen, a lot of PC manufacturers are
going to be moving away from IDE and to SCSI for hard disk support. This
will be done by putting SCSI chips on the motherboard and providing BIOS
support.
What will this mean for operating systems? Well, DOS and Windows work fine
with INT 13h. So does OS/2. Netware, SCO Unix, and USL Unix require drivers.
The PC manufactures are likely to provide drivers for these operating systems.
(They will also provide OS/2 and Windows drivers, because both of these
operating systems allow for protected mode drivers to take over from the
INT 13h BIOS to provide better performance).
It seems to me that when this point is reached, operating systems that
can't use INT 13h are going to be at a serious disadvantage, unless they
are popular enough to prompt the PC manufacturers to include drivers for
them.
I see people post here about how nice it would be for linux to become
very popular. I think for that to happen, there will have to be an INT 13h
driver. (I'd consider writing one myself, but I don't run linux on any of
my PCs. Why don't I run linux? Well, for one reason, all of my PCs have
SCSI controllers that linux doesn't know about!)
-- "Pope moved that we strike from the State's brief and appendix a selection from the Year Book of 1484 written in Medieval Latin and references thereto. The State provided no translation and conceded a total lack of knowledge of what it meant. The motion is granted" 396 A.2d 1054 --Tim Smith