low compression of kernel

[Felix Kloeckner]

hello,

just a simple question:

what's the reason for using only a compression level of 3 instead of default or even maximum?
9 works fine for me and give me some additional space for the kernel

"makerule linux.bin.gz: linux.bin ;gzip -f -3 linux.bin" in "src/arch/i386/config/make.base", line 39

felix

Felix Kloeckner  writes:
> hello,
>
> just a simple question:
>
> what's the reason for using only a compression level of 3 instead of default or
> even maximum?
>
> 9 works fine for me and give me some additional space for the kernel
>
> "makerule linux.bin.gz: linux.bin ;gzip -f -3 linux.bin" in
> "src/arch/i386/config/make.base", line 39

Two reasons.
1) That code has been depricated for over a year.
2) There were bugs seen when decompressing a kernel when presented
   with a kernel with maximum decompression.

Eric

vgabios emulation status

[Richard Smith]

Ok the last thing I need is to get LB to run the vga bios for the 69030 
chips (there are 2).

I haven't seen any activity on the vgabios facility of linuxbios in a 
while.  Can someone give me a rundown on the current status and what 
needs to be done to make that happen.

vgabios emulation status

[ron minnich]

On Mon, 28 Apr 2003, Richard Smith wrote:
> Ok the last thing I need is to get LB to run the vga bios for the 69030 
> chips (there are 2).
>
> I haven't seen any activity on the vgabios facility of linuxbios in a 
> while.  Can someone give me a rundown on the current status and what 
> needs to be done to make that happen.

it worked on a small scale. But I thought those 69030 parts were so simple 
you did not need a vga bios?

ron

vgabios emulation status

[Richard Smith]

ron minnich wrote:
> it worked on a small scale. But I thought those 69030 parts were so simple 
> you did not need a vga bios?

Oh man I wish but, no way, not in the least.  There are bunches of 
registes that have to be setup.  Especially the Flat Panel registers.
The 030 is further complicated by the fact that it has 2 independent 
rendering pipelines.  It can drive both a CRT and LCD at 2 different 
resolutions at the same time.

The good thing is that the full docs on the chip are available from 
asiliants web page.

Is there a config anywhere in the tree that shows and example setup?

vgabios emulation status

[ron minnich]

To get vgabios working I think you should first boot linux with serial 
console, then run the little user-mode vga emulator in the linuxbios tree 
and see if you can get vga up. This is the easiest way to work out the 
problems.

ron

vgabios emulation status

[Richard Smith]

ron minnich wrote:
> To get vgabios working I think you should first boot linux with serial 
> console, then run the little user-mode vga emulator in the linuxbios tree 
> and see if you can get vga up. This is the easiest way to work out the 
> problems.

Ok.. I was hoping to give it a test and see if it "just worked"  I don't 
yet have a useable filesystem setup.  I sent you the only one I had. :)

I'll see what I can cobble up together.  I think I have a 128 MB CF 
around here somewhere.  In the mean time can I just try-and-see?

errors compiling the vga bios stuff

[Richard Smith]

Richard Smith wrote:

I'm trying to compile in the realmode vga bios stuff and I'm getting an 
undefined reference to 'pcibios' in function 'biosinit'

So far the only place I've found the body of function pcibios is in the 
src/bioscall/pcibios.c file.  That file is not included in my make file. 
  I assume that CONFIG_PCIBIOS=1 would control the inclusion of this 
file but I can't find any rule in the Makefile that would include this 
file even though the options is set.

Do I have to somehow manually include this file?

Also if I set VIDEO_CONSOLE=1 I get a undefined ref to 'beep' in 
function 'video_tx_byte' but I haven't done much digging on that.

I'm out of the office tomorrow so it will be Wed before I can respond to 
any questions.

Thanks in advance

errors compiling the vga bios stuff

[ron minnich]

dammit. Version creep. OK, I'll take a look. Last time I tried this it 
worked.

For FreeBIOS 2 we're going to have nightly builds of all configurations to 
make sure this doesn't happen.

ron

errors compiling the vga bios stuff

[Richard Smith]

ron minnich wrote:
> dammit. Version creep. OK, I'll take a look. Last time I tried this it 
> worked.

I figured out how to get pcibios.o into the makefile.  Looks like 
freebios/src/config/Config needs a dir/bioscall added to the list of std 
directories to parse.

This gets pcibios.o in the works based on the CONFIG_PCIBIOS setting. 
The problem now is that pcibios won't compile.

pcibios() has the following in it.

busdevfn = dev->bus->number | (dev->devfn & 0xff)

where dev is a pci_dev structure.  bus is also a pci_dev struct. 
According to include/pci.h pci_dev dosen't have a member named 'number' 
and thus it errors.

The the layout of pci_dev changed any reciently ?

errors compiling the vga bios stuff

[ron minnich]

OK, I am currently trying to sync my tree back up with cvs, then will look 
at this.

Owners of mainboards, please see if I'm getting close.

Eric how is the LNXI tree syncup doing?

ron

errors compiling the vga bios stuff

[ron minnich]

On Wed, 30 Apr 2003, Richard Smith wrote:
> I figured out how to get pcibios.o into the makefile.  Looks like 
> freebios/src/config/Config needs a dir/bioscall added to the list of std 
> directories to parse.

dir/bioscall is very architecture-dependent, so this will have to go 
somewhere else. I'll look.

I'll look at that other weird problem too.

ron

errors compiling the vga bios stuff

[ron minnich]

On Wed, 30 Apr 2003, Richard Smith wrote:

First, I just fixed the silly typo (not sure where it came from) with 
IRQ_SLOT_COUNT

Second, as regards VGA, no build errors here. Here is my .config for an 
epia. See the last two lines. And vgabios.o and idt.o get build and linked 
in.

weird.

on

#
# LinuxBIOS config file for: VIA epia mini-itx
#

target epia

# via epia
mainboard via/epia

# Enable Serial Console for debugging
option SERIAL_CONSOLE=1
option TTYS0_BAUD=115200
option DEFAULT_CONSOLE_LOGLEVEL=9
option DEBUG=1

# Use 256KB Standard Flash as Normal BIOS 
option RAMTEST=1
option USE_GENERIC_ROM=1
option STD_FLASH=1
#option ZKERNEL_START=0xfffc0000
option ROM_SIZE=262144

# payload size = 192KB
option PAYLOAD_SIZE=196608

# use ELF Loader to load Etherboot
option USE_ELF_BOOT=1

# Use Etherboot as our payload 
payload ../lnxieepro100.ebi

option CONFIG_VGABIOS=1
option CONFIG_REALMODE_IDT=1

errors compiling the vga bios stuff

[SONE Takeshi]

On Wed, Apr 30, 2003 at 01:41:31PM -0600, ron minnich wrote:
> Second, as regards VGA, no build errors here. Here is my .config for an 
> epia. See the last two lines. And vgabios.o and idt.o get build and linked 
> in.

Is this config for VGA stuff supposed to "work" on EPIA?
Or just a test to build?
> #
> # LinuxBIOS config file for: VIA epia mini-itx
> #
>
> target epia
>
> # via epia
> mainboard via/epia
>
> # Enable Serial Console for debugging
> option SERIAL_CONSOLE=1
> option TTYS0_BAUD=115200
> option DEFAULT_CONSOLE_LOGLEVEL=9
> option DEBUG=1
>
> # Use 256KB Standard Flash as Normal BIOS 
> option RAMTEST=1
> option USE_GENERIC_ROM=1
> option STD_FLASH=1
> #option ZKERNEL_START=0xfffc0000
> option ROM_SIZE=262144
>
> # payload size = 192KB
> option PAYLOAD_SIZE=196608
>
> # use ELF Loader to load Etherboot
> option USE_ELF_BOOT=1
>
> # Use Etherboot as our payload 
> payload ../lnxieepro100.ebi
>
> option CONFIG_VGABIOS=1
> option CONFIG_REALMODE_IDT=1

errors compiling the vga bios stuff

[ron minnich]

On Thu, 1 May 2003, SONE Takeshi wrote:
> Is this config for VGA stuff supposed to "work" on EPIA?
> Or just a test to build?

just a test to build.

ron

vgabios emulation status

[ron minnich]

On Mon, 28 Apr 2003, Richard Smith wrote:
> I'll see what I can cobble up together.  I think I have a 128 MB CF 
> around here somewhere.  In the mean time can I just try-and-see?

sure. try and see, it might shock you by working.

option CONFIG_REALMOE_IDT=1
option CONFIG_VGABIOS=1

ron