Kernel patches significance in LinuxBIOS cvs

[Deepak Kotian]

Hi,

Could someone please clarify on this.

1.  Is there a kernel patch needed for all the motherboards to work out
LinuxBIOS?

2.  How do I know that I need a kernel patch to work out LinuxBIOS
        on my motherboard.

Please suggest

Thanks and Regards
Deepak

[ron minnich]

On Wed, 9 Apr 2003, Deepak Kotian wrote:
> Is there a kernel patch needed for all the motherboards to work out
>
> LinuxBIOS?

no.
> How do I know that I need a kernel patch to work out LinuxBIOS
>  on my motherboard.

if linuxbios comes up so fast that IDE is not ready, you need the IDE 
patch.

ron

ron minnich  writes:
> On Wed, 9 Apr 2003, Deepak Kotian wrote:
> > Is there a kernel patch needed for all the motherboards to work out
> >
> > LinuxBIOS?
>
> no.
> > How do I know that I need a kernel patch to work out LinuxBIOS
> >  on my motherboard.
>
> if linuxbios comes up so fast that IDE is not ready, you need the IDE 
> patch.

Note that while it works it is not the correct fix.

There is a place in the probe code where the kernel should spin
on the busy bit.  But so far Linux has ignored that.
The PowerPC guys are seeing this problem as well so there is chance
the clean fix will get into the kernel.

Eric

[ron minnich]

On 9 Apr 2003, Eric W. Biederman wrote:
> Note that while it works it is not the correct fix.

agreed, my patch is very ugly.
> There is a place in the probe code where the kernel should spin
> on the busy bit.  But so far Linux has ignored that.

linux has not gotten this right for 3 years now, I gave up waiting.

ron

ron minnich  writes:
> On 9 Apr 2003, Eric W. Biederman wrote:
> > Note that while it works it is not the correct fix.
>
> agreed, my patch is very ugly.
> > There is a place in the probe code where the kernel should spin
> > on the busy bit.  But so far Linux has ignored that.
>
> linux has not gotten this right for 3 years now, I gave up waiting.

My points are:
1) There is a correct solution polling the BSY bit.  And
   except in one case that only Ollie has seen that is sufficient.
2) The correct code currently exists in etherboot.
3) There are PPC kernel developers who are seeing this as well,
   and agree with me about the correct fix.
4) The PPC guys have it in there tree and were busily pushing it
   into the mainstream kernel.

For just the LinuxBIOS case Andre Hendricks figured we have a borked
BIOS.  For the PPC case there was enough justification to get
the code in.

This is just a status report of where that conversation was last
time I looked.  But the code was accepted in principle now if
we can just get a clear development path on the IDE layer something
might actually happen.

Eric