[coreboot] Sun Ultra 40 M2 Board - Obscured coreboot status

[Bostjan Kravcar]

Hello Jonathan,

 

Your response surely came as a blessing ... reading it halfway through, I
was just about to throw the towel, but when I read the rest, it truly made
my day.  So it must have been just recently, that the coreboot support for
the AMD K8 (Fam0Fh) was deprecated, as the board is listed in the latest,
4.8 stable release. Oh well, at least for me it's no harm done, as it never
was my intention to dabble in coreboot, only to keep those 2nd Gen Opterons
in the Ultra 40 M2's sockets ... I just somehow overlooked the "K8 only"
neon sign, tying together two stories that could have been a >marriage made
in heaven<, but apparently the merging of two worlds never really happened -
the actual Sun Ultra 40 M2 coreboot port, and the yearnings of Sun Ultra 40
M2 owners from years ago, voicing high hopes in the coreboot project, to
bring the 4 and 6-Core K10 Opteron support to life. My imagination and want
did the rest; I never once questioned the K10, for being supported or not by
the coreboot port, although the absence of any reference in your board
status table was a bit odd, now that I think about it (!).

 

First and foremost - I would be delighted to try out your latest K10/Fam10h
port, to flash it on my yet to be purchased Ultra 40 M2 machine. I would be
also keen to know, which Quad-Core Opterons did you use for testing (or you
still use), as I'm in no position to gamble with something untested ...
unless you can reassure me that it doesn't really matter, which K10 Opterons
I choose for playing (Barcelona, Shanghai, Instanbul - be it regular of High
Efficiency variants). If you decide to push your "Ultra 40 M2 - Fam10h" Port
to some public place (like GitHub), that would be great. if you're not
inclined to do that at this stage, then I'd be grateful for some other
arrangements, until you decide what to do with your port, in reference to
official coreboot project.  

 

There's only one "small" problem ... before I'm competent enough, to either
talk or do anything coreboot related, I'll have to learn to crawl and walk
first, or so it seems (have a look at my response to David). Browsing
through available coreboot documentation it suddenly dawned on me, that I
may not be nearly enough qualified, to even start with the work (flash the
coreboot image onto existing or blank BIOS chip), let alone do some
customizations, or contribute the relevant test results. I really don't want
to surrender, not after I got so excited about doing this, but unless I
receive some additional guidance (links, directions...), I'm pretty much
stuck in the mud.

 

Looking forward ...

 

Kind regards,

Bostjan    

 

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