[PATCH] bios: os2gap: remove ancient legacy test (LP:#1470573)

[Blibbet]

>> I don't know about this test, but OS/2 isn't dead yet. Arca Noae appears
>> to be the current owner of OS.
>
> Interesting. And I thought OS/2 was dead.
...
> That will be bring them into the modern firmware era, so the os2gap test
> will be meaningless in that context.

http://www.arcanoae.com/wiki/acpi/requirements/

"Your system must have a standards compliant BIOS. The PSD has
workarounds for, and will work on systems with minor BIOS defects.
However if certain critical pieces are missing or don’t work, you will
not be able to boot."

"Your system must have valid ACPI tables that properly describe the
hardware. The PSD has workarounds for some common minor ACPI defects, so
systems with these minor ACPI defects will work. Systems with seriously
broken ACPI tables will not work properly."

(no mention of UEFI on requirements page.)

http://www.arcanoae.com/roadmap/

In the Long Term dev roadmap, they mention the need for GPT to replace
MBR. (They don't mention the need for UEFI to replace BIOS.)

"The MBR support in the BIOS has been replaced by the GPT disk layout
which is part of the UEFI standard. Current research seems to indicate
that we can provide GPT support via something called a hybrid MBR."

http://www.arcanoae.com/arca-noae-joins-the-uefi-forum-as-an-adopting-member/

"Arca Noae develops and maintains the current ACPI implementation for
the OS/2 and eComStation platform. Arca Noae is committed to running
OS/2 on current hardware. UEFI, like ACPI, is a continuation of the
trend to move more functions from the BIOS to the operating system. Arca
Noae is looking into how this new technology can be supported under OS/2
in the future."

Given ACPI comments in their UEFI Forum press release, and GPT is on
their long term dev radar, I presume they're going to be BIOS/ACPI-based
for a while, before they switch over to UEFI. I've emailed them and
asked them for more specific info about their firmware plans, and about
the need for this test.