February 2005 - coreboot - mail.coreboot.org

Tyan Opteron board with LinuxBIOS for production environment?
by Jeremy Jackson Feb. 9, 2005

Feb. 9, 2005

Hi, I wonder if someone can advise me about this. Tyan looks promising for us, due to longer product life cycles and 3 year warranty. We would like to build identical servers for as long as possible, to minimize our engineering and integration costs. We would also like to use LinuxBIOS for serial console support, good integration flexibility, redundant booting support, and bootup speed. I would really like to talk to someone at Tyan or on the LinuxBIOS mailing list about how we might accomplish this. This is a serious application in avionics. Thanks, Jeremy -- Jeremy Jackson Coplanar Networks (519)897-1516 http://www.coplanar.net

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RE: VGA option rom code broken?
by YhLu Feb. 9, 2005

Feb. 9, 2005

I just tested five agp cards works on: 1. Nvidia NV25 GL ( Quadro4 750XGL) 2. ATI Fire GLX1 Fail: 1. Nvidia FX5800 2. Nvidia FX3000 (Quadro) 3. Nvidia FX1000 (Duadro) YH > -----Original Message----- > From: YhLu > Sent: Wednesday, February 09, 2005 9:50 AM > To: Li-Ta Lo; Ronald G. Minnich > Cc: Stefan Reinauer; LinuxBIOS > Subject: RE: VGA option rom code broken? > > I'm back to office, and I could do some test on that today. > > YH > > > -----Original Message----- > > From: Li-Ta Lo [mailto:ollie@lanl.gov] > > Sent: Wednesday, February 09, 2005 9:28 AM > > To: Ronald G. Minnich > > Cc: YhLu; Stefan Reinauer; LinuxBIOS > > Subject: RE: VGA option rom code broken? > > > > On Wed, 2005-02-09 at 10:22, Ronald G. Minnich wrote: > > > On Tue, 8 Feb 2005, YhLu wrote: > > > > > > > But I guess the problem is about Emulator, and Ron is > > digging that > > > > on > > > > S2885 now. With LinuxBIOS (enable VGA and copy that to > > RAM but don't > > > > run_BIOS) + test bios. > > > > > > some more detail on this. We have temporarily modified > > linuxbios to do > > > everything EXCEPT actually run the emulator. This ensures > that the > > > routing is right in 18:1 etc. but allows us to defer > > running the bios > > > until we can run the user mode testbios. > > > > > > I think that a CMOS setting and/or build time option to > enable this > > > would be very useful. > > > > > > > Is the routing correct? Can you see the vbios image at 0xc0000? > > > > You are using S2885 right? > > > > Ollie > > > > > _______________________________________________ > Linuxbios mailing list > Linuxbios(a)clustermatic.org > http://www.clustermatic.org/mailman/listinfo/linuxbios >

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RE: VGA option rom code broken?
by YhLu Feb. 8, 2005

Feb. 8, 2005

Ron, The PCI card works well when init is done in LinuxBIOS. but if use Linux enable only + testbios, you will get scrambled screen but the X works well. So If you can make X works under testbios, you may don't need to wory about scrambled text screen. Also Is it possiable that AGP graphics card can not get enough Power for PSU? Can you get more big PSU or 700W one for testing? YH > -----Original Message----- > From: Ronald G. Minnich [mailto:rminnich@lanl.gov] > Sent: Wednesday, February 09, 2005 9:45 AM > To: Li-Ta Lo > Cc: YhLu; Stefan Reinauer; LinuxBIOS > Subject: RE: VGA option rom code broken? > > > > On Wed, 9 Feb 2005, Li-Ta Lo wrote: > > > Did you get scrambled screen or a blank one? > > for our cards, we get one scrambled screen, and one blank > one. In X, we get a scrambled screen. > > here's a great one. For the NV5500 ($500 card), if we don't > connect the external hard drive power connector, the card > works under X! > > ron >

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RE: VGA option rom code broken?
by YhLu Feb. 8, 2005

Feb. 8, 2005

I'm back to office, and I could do some test on that today. YH > -----Original Message----- > From: Li-Ta Lo [mailto:ollie@lanl.gov] > Sent: Wednesday, February 09, 2005 9:28 AM > To: Ronald G. Minnich > Cc: YhLu; Stefan Reinauer; LinuxBIOS > Subject: RE: VGA option rom code broken? > > On Wed, 2005-02-09 at 10:22, Ronald G. Minnich wrote: > > On Tue, 8 Feb 2005, YhLu wrote: > > > > > But I guess the problem is about Emulator, and Ron is > digging that > > > on > > > S2885 now. With LinuxBIOS (enable VGA and copy that to > RAM but don't > > > run_BIOS) + test bios. > > > > some more detail on this. We have temporarily modified > linuxbios to do > > everything EXCEPT actually run the emulator. This ensures that the > > routing is right in 18:1 etc. but allows us to defer > running the bios > > until we can run the user mode testbios. > > > > I think that a CMOS setting and/or build time option to enable this > > would be very useful. > > > > Is the routing correct? Can you see the vbios image at 0xc0000? > > You are using S2885 right? > > Ollie > >

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RE: VGA option rom code broken?
by YhLu Feb. 8, 2005

Feb. 8, 2005

I will modify your MB Config please check it out. YH > -----Original Message----- > From: Stefan Reinauer [mailto:stepan@openbios.org] > Sent: Wednesday, February 09, 2005 12:37 AM > To: YhLu > Cc: Li-Ta Lo; LinuxBIOS > Subject: Re: VGA option rom code broken? > > * YhLu <YhLu(a)tyan.com> [050209 01:48]: > > Stefan, > > > > What's the onboard VGA? are your talking about onboard one? > > > > YH > > Yes, it is an onboard rage xl. Pretty much the same as on all > opteron boards i guess. > > It looks like x86emu can't see the rom itself? I manually > checked the image and it looks ok > > > Stefan >

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VGA option rom code broken?
by Stefan Reinauer Feb. 8, 2005

Feb. 8, 2005

Hi, with the latest code I don't seem to get VGA initialized anymore on the island/aruma (builtin option rom for onboard card). rom address for PCI: 04:04.0 = fff80000 int1a vector at 0 int1a vector at 0 [...] int42 vector at ff065 int6d vector at c16a3 int10 vector at c16a3 int6d vector at c16a3 int10 vector at c16a3 int10 vector at c16a3 int10 vector at c16a3 int10 vector at c16a3 [..] halt_sys: file /home/stepan/cvsroots/freebios2/src/devices/emulator/x86emu/ops.c, line 4400 Stefan

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Re: NTV-1000 STB
by Richard Smith Feb. 7, 2005

Feb. 7, 2005

> I didnt think that LinuxBIOS would help me but was worth a shot. What do > you mean that the SuperIO chip should be easy to get going? Linux bios supports a SMC chip with numbers that are very close to the numbers on your board. Typically that means very little difference between the chips so a quick check with the datasheet would show you what if any tweaks you needed to make to get serial IO. Thats the first step in linuxbios support. Its all pretty much mute though since in order to do that you would need to replace your OTP bios chip with something you can re-program. > I have > confirmed that it is working fine and is powered up, but the bios doesnt > even try to boot from any devices connected to it. Acording to the posts I saw the bios has no int19 support so they really didn't want it to boot from any disks. If it can't be made to netboot easily then your probally better off just chunking it. The RE effort for anything else will be quite large. -- Richard A. Smith

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NTV-1000 STB
by Geoffrey McRae Feb. 7, 2005

Feb. 7, 2005

Hi people, I have recently acquired a NTV-1000 set top box that has a 486 DX4-100 in it, so its standard ix86 architecture, but this thing boots from a flash simm its own os (ONX) and no matter what I do I cant get it to boot from its ide interface. This is where linuxbios comes in, would it be possible to put "LinuxBios" onto the original bios in this thing? The bios is a square smc chip, not like the one documented on the lb website and according to its datasheet its OTP (one time programmable), so flashing it is not an option. I would love to get this thing running as a gateway, but thats pretty much impossible if I cant replace the operating system, the chipset is made by OPTi but finding datahseets on it has proven to be impossible. I have googled for hours looking for a way to re-flash the flash simm with a linux kernel, but the only solution I could find was to buy a programmer, but since this is just an attempt to resurect some useless hardware, I wont be spending more then a couple of $ on it. I cant even be sure that the flash simm the same pinout as a normal simm, and if it is, i wouldnt even know where to start with writing to it on a standard mobo. I have found once reference to someone getting etherboot on it, but I cant contact him as the post was from 2001 and it was a uni email address. Anyhow, back on topic, is there a way to adapt this socket to take a DoC and if so, would LinuxBios support the cipset? I am at work at the moment, so I cant give you the chipset part numbers, but if you need them I will send them when I get home. Regards -- Geoff www.spacevs.com

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VGABIOS
by Jon Smirl Feb. 7, 2005

Feb. 7, 2005

Your work on VGABIOS has been mentioned on the Linux kernel mailing list. Right now we are trying to add VGA reset capability to the kernel. This needs to be done at two points, reseting of secondary cards at boot (the system BIOS should reset the primary one) and reseting of cards if needed when coming out of suspend/resume. There has been talk of adding emu86 to the kernel. Where's the source for your 32K version? I'd also like to look at your code for setting up the environment to run the VBIOS. PPC/IA64 people have been asking for us to add emu86 support so that they can reset their cards. With a 32K emu86 there is no need for us to use vm86 mode. Is LinuxBIOS part of the main kernel tree or is it separate? -- Jon Smirl jonsmirl(a)gmail.com

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broken targets (opteron)
by Ronald G. Minnich Feb. 6, 2005

Feb. 6, 2005

I've only tested a few things but people have been making changes and I don't think that you all are testing carefully enough. I can't get any tyan targets to build. Here is the S2881: DE $file" >> ldscript.ld ; done gcc -m32 -nostdlib -nostartfiles -static -o linuxbios -T ldscript.ld crt0.o /usr/lib/gcc-lib/i586-suse-linux/3.3.4/../../../../i586-suse-linux/bin/ld: section .reset [00000000fffdfff0 -> 00000000fffdffff] overlaps section .rom [00000000fffd7449 -> 00000000fffe037f] /usr/lib/gcc-lib/i586-suse-linux/3.3.4/../../../../i586-suse-linux/bin/ld: section .id [00000000fffdffd9 -> 00000000fffdffef] overlaps section .rom [00000000fffd7449 -> 00000000fffe037f] collect2: ld returned 1 exit status make[1]: *** [linuxbios] Error 1 make[1]: Leaving directory `/root/src/freebios2/targets/tyan/s2881/s2881/normal' make: *** [normal/linuxbios.rom] Error 1 That's typical. The island/aruma also fails to build ===> ERROR: Attempt to set default for nonexistent option ALLOW_HT_OVERCLOCKING(missing USES?) island/aruma/Config.lb:0 src/mainboard/island/aruma/Options.lb:0 Arima/hdama also fails to build. p linuxbios_ram.nrv2b linuxbios_ram.rom gcc -m32 -nostdlib -nostartfiles -static -o linuxbios -T ldscript.ld crt0.o /usr/lib/gcc-lib/i586-suse-linux/3.3.4/../../../../i586-suse-linux/bin/ld: section .reset [00000000fffdfff0 -> 00000000fffdffff] overlaps section .rom [00000000fffd6fe9 -> 00000000fffe022f] /usr/lib/gcc-lib/i586-suse-linux/3.3.4/../../../../i586-suse-linux/bin/ld: section .id [00000000fffdffd8 -> 00000000fffdffef] overlaps section .rom [00000000fffd6fe9 -> 00000000fffe022f] collect2: ld returned 1 exit status make[1]: *** [linuxbios] Error 1 make[1]: Leaving directory `/root/src/freebios2/targets/arima/hdama/hdama/normal' make: *** [normal/linuxbios.rom] Error 1 I think people are getting careless. Could those of you who own these bits of motherboard PLEASE fix them. thanks ron

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