shadowing video

[Cameron, Leigh B]

> 
> I was under the (mis?)aprehension that Linux boxen still used 
> video BIOS
> routines, and that therefore a RAM shadow of video BIOS was still a
> speed-up for linux. Debian obviously don't think so.
The BIOS is only used for the very first steps of booting - i.e. LILO's bit.
Win98 etc. made some use of the BIOS after boot, but Linux doesn't.  It can
however use the video card's VESA BIOS, esp. for text modes - but that's
another whole story!
Perhaps shadowing could speed up LILO's task a little, but it wouldn't do
anything else expect possible waste a few K of RAM!

Leigh.