ron minnich wrote:
On 11/4/06, *Luis Correia* <lfcorreia@lfcorreia.dyndns.org mailto:lfcorreia@lfcorreia.dyndns.org> wrote:
--- now for my questions: a) can the VGA rom be loaded as some sort of payload, and thus be automatically added during the build process, or the described procedure here http://www.linuxbios.org/VGA_support is still the best way ?that's still the only way for now.
bummer!
I've managed to reduce the overall size of the bios and added the original VGA bios rom. But my guess (from reading the archives) that VSA is still not supported and such, my hopes of seeing any image on teh VGA screen are now even more reduced...
b) is there any way to tell where the IRQ pins for each PCI device are connected to the IRQ router chip?schematics. Or a volt-ohm meter. In all too many cases, the IRQ table in the fuctory bios is wrong. It can not be trusted.
I don't have any schematics, but there is an ohm meter around here. but the chips are BGA, i can't just rip them off the board to read the pins :)
c) i built an irq_tables.c using getpir, but it didn't actually helped much, as now i've got fewer devices working compared with the original bios :) (which i'm not that surprised at all) is getpir still the best method of detecting the original configuration?I used to depend on getpir, until I found out how many bioses have the wrong PIRQ table, and then I found that after 2.4.18 Linux is parsing the IRQ tables incorrectly for cs5530, due to the fact that about half the GX1 tables in the world are wrong ... it is a terrible mess. So, getpir is only as good as the tables in the fuctory bios, which nowadays means ... maybe it will be good, but it is highly probable to have errors.
I have also managed to mess around with the PIRQ table and now linux does not complain about devices having IRQ0 assigned. But there are still problems. It locks up under some irq sharing scenarios. it might take a long while before i get the IRQ assignments right.
d) any other input you might give for help is welcomenice work! how much did this board cost, and where do we get one?
Thanks!
This is a surplus board, that cost me 75€. (Manufacturer's website: http://www.ieiworld.com/en/product_IPC.asp?model=NOVA-4899)
It's an old not RoHS compliant, and I don't even were supposed to have it here in Europe ;) but it is obsolete industrial equipment parts, and I got it from my friend Martin Hoehne at www.minipci.biz . These boards are sold out now, but it has some similar ones, also using a Geode GX1. (http://www.ieiworld.com/en/product_IPC.asp?model=ISS-102)
Everyone, I think we can NOT delete the cs5530 support, or gx1 support in general; we have a new motherboard!
Luis, can you do an svn diff and post a patch to the list; or use the tracker?
Let me get this into a better shape, and i'll post a patch diff here (let me know which is the right way to present the patch).
thanks
ron p.s. your english is better than most US high school students :-)
well, that is maybe because i'm 41 and try a lot not to make a fool out of myself :) (most of the time anyway...)
Luis