On Fri, Apr 27, 2007 at 01:03:40AM -0500, Kevin Adler wrote:
how easy is it to build the LinuxBIOS and flash it
I would say that that the build process is fairly easy;
First, prepare a payload. I would pick etherboot in order to easily experiment with different payloads, then adjust the payload line in targets/gigabyte/m57sli/Config.lb to point to the payload file. Then:
cd targets ./buildtarget gigabyte/m57sli cd gigabyte/m57sli/m57sli make
And now you should have a linuxbios.rom.
Flash it with flashrom -w linuxbios.rom
without bricking it?
:)
(I've been looking at the sideproject here about using the extra bios socket, but my soldering skills are not very good and I don't have much in the way of decent soldering tools)
If I couldn't solder I wouldn't experiment myself simply because it would be so much work to find someone who could fix it.
Perhaps you know someone who you could get some soldering help from?
One way to find a shop is to look for game console modification shops, they do this sort of thing (and more advanced things) all day and should be able to help you for around $50 if you bring the needed components. (PLCC socket, resistor, wire and switch) Possibly a friendly TV or radio repair shop could help too, but they may not have suitable soldering equipment for the surface mount parts.
and also, how easy is it to set what would be normal BIOS settings like voltage, cpu multipliers, etc... (For say overclocking a system)
None of these things were originally intended to be user settings, so currently you have to hack the source code.
LinuxBIOS is designed to configure the system for optimal performance while remaining within safe operation specifications for a particular board and configuration. LB determines max memory speed by reading the SPD identification EEPROM on RAM modules for example.
The desire to experiment with system performance and overclocking should not be overlooked however.. I think it's an important and exciting new use case.
I've heard about a Google SoC project to get some sort of CMOS setup like interface after it is booted
Yes. This project will primarily be for the new generation LinuxBIOS, v3, which is still in it's early stages of development, although it is hoped to soon run on real hardware. :)
This also means that the board is pretty much clean, and we would love to hear your ideas.
A great way to contribute to the project even if you don't write code is to say what you want. It's not always obvious to developers since we may be stuck in some certain way of thinking. (I know I would never want to overclock. :)
My personal wet dream in this case is for _everything_ to be user overridable, but I may be going a bit overboard..
//Peter