On Mon, Apr 7, 2008 at 11:12 PM, Peter Stuge peter@stuge.se wrote:
On Mon, Apr 07, 2008 at 08:52:27PM -0600, Jordan Crouse wrote:
My opinion is that option ROMs should not be needed, and that we have code for basic init for all supported hardware in coreboot.
Is it really worth supporting dozens upon dozens of cards when all those cards already come with their own code free of charge?
Long term, yes I think so. The common open source driver rhetoric applies, vendors probably don't really like that code. Pushing it outside their organization should be beneficial both for them and users. (Though I expect the transition to be a little bumpy because of differing work environments, habits and standards.)
Ugh. Anyone want to wager a guess as to how many different PCI (not including AGP or PCI-E) video cards there are? I don't think we could fit hardware init for every PCI video card out there into 4Mb. Don't get me wrong, I love the idea, but I just don't think it's practical.
I know that optionROMs are proprietary and closed and scary but they work.
They are also machine specific and sometimes painfully slow.
We can work around the first part with x86emu, which is a cool trick, but not so elegant. :)
Long term I think I would like to set a graphics mode in coreboot.
What value would such a thing have, other then putting up a splashscreen? We won't have callbacks, so payloads couldn't use it.
They could use it if it was left in a defined state.
It would only be able to communicate the coreboot boot progress and if we play our cards right coreboot will boot so fast that we'll be in the payload before the screen even syncs. In the large collection of things that coreboot doesn't need, I think video and NIC cards are number one on the hit parade.
Agree for coreboot itself, but the point would be to do enough in order to make them usable.
The console is a little special since that is where the user is, and while coreboot should work without user intervention, payloads may not.
3 things I want to throw in: - why not have the monitor syncing while coreboot/payload are still running? Isn't one of the benefits of coreboot to have the (entire) system in a ready state ASAP? - coreboot always has/should have the option NOT to touch the video/pci roms, and not to include the emulator, so if the user wants to put it in the payload, they always have the option. - if the payload fails before or during video init for some reason, not every user has a null modem serial cable, or USB debug cable. The sooner video is up, theoretically at least, the less that can go wrong before it gets done, and hopefully it can provide something useful.
-Corey