Firmware dir

In PlingBoot.Utils.SetChoices there’s a new line setting BootFirmware$Path. What’s that about?

Just curious ’cos I noticed.

Hmm. The Git commit says nothing more than “Declare a BootFirmware path for hardware drivers to use” and all it seems to do is set the new variable to <BootResources$Dir>.Firmware (assuming that I’m reading the file correctly: I’m on a Windows machine so don’t have the proper detokeniser).

Is that Firmware directory new too? It’s not in my 2022-vintage !Boot, at least.

From the Titanium with !Boot from the beta HardDisc4 of 2024-03-31.

*show *firmware*
BootFirmware$Path : ADFS::Titan4.$.!BOOT.Resources.Firmware.
*

curious

+=1

Goodies yet to come? NVMeDriver??

Most likely intended for wifi firmware which gets softloaded when the driver loads. You don’t want to pad a driver full of unnecessary binary blobs for each variant, so it makes sense to store it on disc. For the ROD wifi beta, we use !OBSD.Firmware. I’d have expected !Internet.Firmware from ROOL, but making it a separate system variable makes it easy to re-locate as necessary. Of course, at this point we don’t know how driver-specific this firmware would be, but the idea of a shared resource that both stacks could utilise makes some degree of sense.

I’d have expected !Internet.Firmware from ROOL

One level up. I suppose one could argue that WiFi isn’t internet?

I suppose one could argue that WiFi isn’t internet?

Wi-Fi is a subdivision of Network.
Internet is just a chunk of stuff you access over the Network, be it wired or wireless.
World Wide Wibble is another subdivision of network use overlapping with Internet.

In this particular instance, I suspect the “Firmware” could be for any bit of hardware supporting Networking, or storage, or display, or…

I was going to suggest that it could be for devices which need custom firmware loading, such as WiFi chips. But Andrew has comprehensively beaten me!

If we’re into splitting hairs, then you could say that !Internet isn’t Internet… it’s the TCP/IP stack. Are there many applications for WiFi which do not use TCP/IP? (hmm… anything UDP, I guess!)

TCP/IP includes UDP

TCP/IP includes UDP

You mean IP includes TCP and UDP, TCP/IP is the connection oriented side, UDP/IP is the connectionless.
UDP shifts more data in a specific time, at the expense of reliability of delivery (although the latter tends not to be much of an issue these days)

Ok, you force me to use more words; when people say “the TCP/IP stack”, they mean the “TCP/IP, UDP/IP (and some other IP stuff) stack”. But obviously that is a bit of a mouthful, so they use less words.

How about “IP stack”?

But obviously that is a bit of a mouthful, so they use less words.

Oh, you mean “the internet”.

<ducks and runs away>

How about “IP stack”?

Much better.

Oh, you mean “the internet”.

Aw, please. What they usually say is something like “I’ve lost my Internet”¹, which on a ‘nice’ day is allowed to pass, on the playful days, not.

¹ One response (not mine) was: “Have you? Where were you when you last had it? Have you checked all your pockets?” – cue departure of the lost soul in a major huff.

Ok, you force me to use more words; when people say “the TCP/IP stack”, they mean the “TCP/IP, UDP/IP (and some other IP stuff) stack”. But obviously that is a bit of a mouthful, so they use less words.

Me too.
However, I tend to say “IP stack” or “IP packets” or “TCP” or “UDP” or “ICMP”
Short, and avoids being wrong. OK, fair enough, the audience does tend to be a bit on the techie side.

Oh, you mean “the internet”.

At least it’s mildly better than when the media was touting the “information superhighway”, aka a 64k ISDN line.

Also reminds me of a book I still have “The Internet by Email”, a gloriously informative book on how to perform internet related tasks, using only email.

Aw, please. What they usually say is something like “I’ve lost my Internet”1, which on a ‘nice’ day is allowed to pass, on the playful days, not.

“Please Sir, my pen’s run out.”

“Then run out after it, boy!”

Seriously though, in French “internet” is initially capitalised as a proper noun like God, and thus you could not claim ownership. No articles or  possessive pronouns allowed!

Taken to Aldershot