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39564 discussions

port into x86 HOWTO ?
by Karthik Bala Guru 22 Sep '02

22 Sep '02

Hi, Actually i am trying to port rtlinux into a x86 board . that board has our own BIOS . the BIOS supports only upto 200 KB memory . I have RTlinux ported into a floppy to around 500 KB. I am ready to port into that X86 board , but our BIOS's drawback makes me to wait till the BIOS is made to support upto atleast 800 KB. and this is about to consume many weeks. I came across LINUXBIOS ..... Will this able to replace the BIOS problem that i have with porting into the X86 baord ?? How to start with ??? Some clear steps plz ..... ????? Do i require a MONITOR prg ? Is it possible to port my minimised RTlinux into the X86 board with the use of linuxbios ????? Help me out ! karthik bala guru Yahoo! Properties Special Buy, sell, rent...your flat, or even post an ad

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porting rtlinux into x86 ??
by Karthik Bala Guru 22 Sep '02

22 Sep '02

Hi, Actually i am trying to port rtlinux into a x86 board . that board has our own BIOS . the BIOS supports only upto 200 KB memory . I have RTlinux ported into a floppy to around 500 KB. I am ready to port into that X86 board , but our BIOS's drawback makes me to wait till the BIOS is made to support upto atleast 800 KB. and this is about to consume many weeks. I came across LINUXBIOS ..... Will this able to replace the BIOS problem that i have with porting into the X86 baord ?? How to start with ??? Some clear steps plz ..... ????? Do i require a MONITOR prg ? Is it possible to port my minimised RTlinux into the X86 board with the use of linuxbios ????? Help me out ! karthik bala guru ________________________________________________________________________ Missed your favourite TV serial last night? Try the new, Yahoo! TV. visit http://in.tv.yahoo.com

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Linuxbios for VIA EPIA motherboards?
by Nicholas Mistry 22 Sep '02

22 Sep '02

I was wondering what is the status of the support on VIA EPIA motherboards w/ LinuxBIOS. I have dug through the archives quite a bit, and found that there has been someintrest w/ supporting the boards. Unfortunately i have not found any information as to howfar along it has gone. Thanks -Nick

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DOC on EPIA-800 motherboard
by Nicholas Mistry 21 Sep '02

21 Sep '02

After reading over my manual, i discovered that the EPIA-800 has a DOC option. After looking onthe motherboard, it seems that all that is required is a surface mount flash chip. Anyone know what kind of chip can be used here? And how does one access it? I have a few 32 or 64 Mbit Intel flash chips laying around from my Assabet days. It would be nice to drop one of those on,and take advantage of it. -N

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Modern GPU programming
by Peter Stuge 21 Sep '02

21 Sep '02

Hi! I found this on the sourceforge page about xbox-linux. It briefly discusses the capabilities of a modern graphics processing unit, specifically the nVidia model found in Xboxes. It also shows how to set up 80x25 text mode on these chips. This should be useful information for the LinuxBIOS project as well. http://xbox-linux.sourceforge.net/articles.php?aid=2002181091439 Basically it contains this code: void crtcout(unsigned char reg, unsigned char data) { /* a single 16 bit access might also work */ _asm { mov al, reg mov ebx, 0xFD6013d4 mov [ebx], al mov al, data mov 1[ebx], al } } void settextmode() { crtcout(0x00, 0x5F); crtcout(0x01, 0x4F); crtcout(0x04, 0x54); crtcout(0x05, 0x80); crtcout(0x07, 0x1F); crtcout(0x10, 0x9C); crtcout(0x17, 0xA3); } crtcout() uses MMIO to access the CRTC registers since legacy IO is disabled in the Xbox. The MMIO memory region is programmed into the GPU by the BIOS. (0xFD000000 with vanilla Xbox kernel) However, the offset of the CRTC in this memory region is "magic" and probably only known by the chipset manufacturer, unless reverse engineered. The web page also mentions the need to set up a font on that particular hardware, however most PC graphics cards should already have a font onboard, right? Anyway, I thought this might be of interest to members of this list. //Peter

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BIOS Tweaking?
by Adam Hunt 20 Sep '02

20 Sep '02

A link on Slashdot to an article at Ars Technica (http://arstechnica.com/guide/building/bios/bios-1.html) about BIOS tweaking got me thinking. Is it possible to modify things things the BIOS has traditionally initialized. Thinks like CAS timing, RAS-to-CAS, and even things like clocking options like processor and PCI multipliers. --adam -- GMX - Die Kommunikationsplattform im Internet. http://www.gmx.net

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Re: General LinuxBIOS Questions
by Christer Weinigel 20 Sep '02

20 Sep '02

ollie lho <ollie(a)sis.com.tw> writes: > On Tue, 2002-09-17 at 07:38, Eric W Biederman wrote: > > interesting problem, and hasn't been fully solved yet. Currently I > > connect the serial port to a box with a lot of serial ports, and > > that box is network accessible. > > > > Do you know if there is an KVM switch equivalent for serial > port ?? How do you monitor multiple LinuxBIOS boxes except using many > minicom ?? You get a terminal server such as a Cyclades: http://www.cyclades.com/products/ts_series.php The nice thing about a serial port is that it is realistic to always log everything even from a large amount of machines. So it's quite possible to build a central monitoring application that automatically records oopses that appear on an serial console and forward them to the system administrator, and with the logs the system administrator could see what actions led up to the oops. > How do you connect these 350 nodes "physically" to you console ?? Do you > need many consoles or is there any think like "hub" the LAN ?? With 32-port terminal servers thats just a dozen of them. /Christer -- "Just how much can I get away with and still go to heaven?" Freelance consultant specializing in device driver programming for Linux Christer Weinigel <christer(a)weinigel.se> http://www.weinigel.se

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Re: General LinuxBIOS Questions
by Eric W Biederman 20 Sep '02

20 Sep '02

We are down to questions that are definitely appropriate for the list. "Jeffrey B. Layton" <laytonjb(a)bellsouth.net> writes: > Eric W Biederman wrote: > > >"Jeffrey B. Layton" <laytonjb(a)bellsouth.net> writes: > > > > > >>Could you > >>list some pros and cons for a prospective customer that > >>is thinking about switching to LinuxBIOS but they are > >>used to the regular old BIOS? > >> > > > >The quick list. > > > >Pros: > >Better serial console support. > >Better debuggability. > >Better manageability. (You can do everything under Linux) > >Quick boot times. > >Has been tested on big (1000 node) clusters. > >Vendors care about cluster issues. > >You get the source. > > > >Cons: > >Boots differently. > >Harder to find people supporting it. > > > > I've got a question about the serial console support and the better > manageability. With LinuxBIOS can you put BIOS messages > across the network to the master node from power on? Or do > you have to wait until you get to Lilo (and then use something > like netconsole in the kernel)? You can do serial from power on. Over the network is a more interesting problem, and hasn't been fully solved yet. Currently I connect the serial port to a box with a lot of serial ports, and that box is network accessible. NIC hardware is noticeably more complex than serial ports so getting a network console going from power on is still an open issue. I don't know that it has been tested much yet. > As for the manageability issue. How is the cluster more manageable > with LinuxBIOS (I'm not being argumentative, but rather curious)? > > For example, if I have a cluster that's pretty stable where I don't lose > many nodes and I don't need to change the BIOS at all, then what > does LinuxBIOS give me in terms of manageability? Manageability is really about when things fail, and have problems, not when they work. But even when things are mostly working you can set your BIOS options the very first time from Linux, and trust they are getting set the same as every other node. You get a reliable network boot, with etherboot. You get a fast boot. You get messages over the serial console from power on. Maybe some of these things are only really annoying when the don't exist and you have lots of hardware. For me I like the ability to do a full install including flashing the BIOS on 350 nodes in under 10 minutes. But manageability comes down to the fact that the little things are getting fixed in LinuxBIOS so it is not a pain to work with, after the learning curve. Eric

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mptable tested and working
by Ronald G Minnich 19 Sep '02

19 Sep '02

I just tested the mptable utility. There is a bit of a hack in there for IOAPICs, but it basically does the right thing for the supermicro p4dpe I'm working with. So the most recent, tested on one motherboard version, is now committed. It generates C code that looks identical (mostly) to the mptable.c code in other directories. ron

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one more memtest question
by Ronald G Minnich 18 Sep '02

18 Sep '02

Looks like linuxbios support is in there. Has anyone built from 3.0 for linuxbios? I am assuming you can just built memtest (it's an elf) and use that as a payload for linuxbios. ron

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