Arvind Seshadri wrote:
Hi, I am looking for a Socket F motherboard that is compatible with LinuxBIOS. The MSI K9SD Master-S2R (MS-9185) seems to be the only one that fits the bill. A couple of questions:
- Where can I find datasheets for the chipset on this motherboard
(Broadcom BCM5785, Broadcom BCM5780)?
As is with many chipsets, you can only get them from the manufacturer, in this case Broadcom. You will have to sign appropriate NDAs, and it will take a *very* long time. They may not deem your need worthy, and you may not get the datasheets at all. (if you were designing a platform, they might give you documentation)
Regarding a Socket F platform: at my day job, I made an LB port to Tyan s3992. It booted with ATI graphics, but was pretty unstable for some reason. (some boots would hang in IDE detection, some would hang in with MCEs). I am a hardware minion, not a BIOS minion, so I didn't really spend much time trying to figure out why it wouldn't work well. The diff between the 3992 and broadcom blast (LB supported) were really very small. If someone willing to deal with the gore of LB would like to add support for more Socket F platforms, Tyan s3992 and s3970 would be good candidates. (one is 2x Socket F, HT2000, HT1000, ATI gfx; one is 2x Socket F, HT1000, XGI Z7 gfx)