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

[Alex Hung]

On 07/04/2015 06:38 AM, Blibbet wrote:
>>> 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 "The MBR support in the BIOS has been replaced by the GPT disk layout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.
> 
> 

Blibbet,

Thanks for the information and helping contact arcanoae for clarification.

I am also in favour of depreciating legacy tests, but we can always
revert this patch if we find out that people out there are still using it.