[RFC] coreboot Live CD

The main problem with LinuxBIOS/coreboot is the lack
of stable releases.

When coreboot gets a stable release or at least a
stable snapshot, it would be nice to add the source
code to a Live CD with the proper toolchain.

Another problem with LinuxBIOS and now with coreboot
is all the mainboards I tried to build or the even
the payloads would never compile without some serious
errors.  Hopefully, a validated coreboot Live CD
would solve this problem and increase exposure of
coreboot at the same time.

Sincerely,

Ken Fuchs

[ron minnich]

On Fri, Jun 20, 2008 at 4:30 PM,   wrote:
> Another problem with LinuxBIOS and now with coreboot
> is all the mainboards I tried to build or the even
> the payloads would never compile without some serious
> errors.  Hopefully, a validated coreboot Live CD
> would solve this problem and increase exposure of
> coreboot at the same time.

Ken, no offense intended, but this is a vacuous comment absent logs of
failed builds. But we'd love to see them.

thanks

ron

[Joseph Smith]

On Fri, 20 Jun 2008 16:50:24 -0600, "ron minnich" 
wrote:
> On Fri, Jun 20, 2008 at 4:30 PM,   wrote:
> > Another problem with LinuxBIOS and now with coreboot
> > is all the mainboards I tried to build or the even
> > the payloads would never compile without some serious
> > errors.  Hopefully, a validated coreboot Live CD
> > would solve this problem and increase exposure of
> > coreboot at the same time.

Sorry I can't relate here my boards build just fine.....

> On Fri, Jun 20, 2008 at 4:30 PM,   wrote:
> > Another problem with LinuxBIOS and now with coreboot
> > is all the mainboards I tried to build or the even
> > the payloads would never compile without some serious
> > errors.  Hopefully, a validated coreboot Live CD
> > would solve this problem and increase exposure of
> > coreboot at the same time.
>
> Ken, no offense intended, but this is a vacuous comment absent logs of
> failed builds. But we'd love to see them.

I sent a log of filo-0.5 compilation issues nearly two weeks
ago as detailed in the following three URIs:

http://www.coreboot.org/pipermail/coreboot/2008-June/035647.html
http://www.coreboot.org/pipermail/coreboot/2008-June/035674.html
http://www.coreboot.org/pipermail/coreboot/2008-June/035718.html

Thanks for responding to my filo-0.5 compilation issues as detailed
in the first URI above, but no one responded to my log in the final
URI above.

------

I haven't previously reported my latest coreboot build issue.
Here it is:

$ cd ./targets
$ ./buildtarget tyan/s2885
build_dir=tyan/s2885/s2885
No coreboot config script found. Rebuilding it..
  File "/mnt/s2u1/atom/cb/coreboot-v2-3360/util/newconfig/yapps2.py",
line 418
    gen.write(indent, "elsf update(self, gen):
                                             ^
SyntaxError: EOL while scanning single-quoted string
python: can't open file 'tyan/s2885/s2885/config.py': [Errno 2] No such
file or directory
./buildtarget: line 78: tyan/s2885/s2885/*/Makefile.settings: No such
file or directory
./buildtarget: line 79: tyan/s2885/s2885/*/Makefile.settings: No such
file or directory
$

I'm using snapshot coreboot-v2-3360.

Sincerely,

Ken Fuchs

[Stefan Reinauer]

[e-mail] wrote:
> > On Fri, Jun 20, 2008 at 4:30 PM,   wrote:
> > > Another problem with LinuxBIOS and now with coreboot
> > > is all the mainboards I tried to build or the even
> > > the payloads would never compile without some serious
> > > errors.  Hopefully, a validated coreboot Live CD
> > > would solve this problem and increase exposure of
> > > coreboot at the same time.
> >
> > Ken, no offense intended, but this is a vacuous comment absent logs of
> > failed builds. But we'd love to see them.
>
> I sent a log of filo-0.5 compilation issues nearly two weeks
> ago as detailed in the following three URIs:
>
> http://www.coreboot.org/pipermail/coreboot/2008-June/035647.html
> http://www.coreboot.org/pipermail/coreboot/2008-June/035674.html
> http://www.coreboot.org/pipermail/coreboot/2008-June/035718.html
>
> Thanks for responding to my filo-0.5 compilation issues as detailed
> in the first URI above, but no one responded to my log in the final
> URI above.

Can you post line 197 of printf.c ? It seems your source code is corrupt 
or something.
> I haven't previously reported my latest coreboot build issue.
> Here it is:
>
> $ cd ./targets
> $ ./buildtarget tyan/s2885
> build_dir=tyan/s2885/s2885
> No coreboot config script found. Rebuilding it..
>   File "/mnt/s2u1/atom/cb/coreboot-v2-3360/util/newconfig/yapps2.py",
> line 418
>     gen.write(indent, "elsf update(self, gen):
>                                              ^

Same issue here:

The line in my source code is:
        gen.write(indent, "else: ")

Your source code is seriously corrupted. How did you download it?

Stefan

> [e-mail] wrote:
> > > On Fri, Jun 20, 2008 at 4:30 PM,   wrote:
> > > > Another problem with LinuxBIOS and now with coreboot
> > > > is all the mainboards I tried to build or the even
> > > > the payloads would never compile without some serious
> > > > errors.  Hopefully, a validated coreboot Live CD
> > > > would solve this problem and increase exposure of
> > > > coreboot at the same time.
> > >
> > > Ken, no offense intended, but this is a vacuous comment 
> > > absent logs of
> > > failed builds. But we'd love to see them.
> >
> > I sent a log of filo-0.5 compilation issues nearly two weeks
> > ago as detailed in the following three URIs:
> >
> > http://www.coreboot.org/pipermail/coreboot/2008-June/035647.html
> > http://www.coreboot.org/pipermail/coreboot/2008-June/035674.html
> > http://www.coreboot.org/pipermail/coreboot/2008-June/035718.html
> >
> > Thanks for responding to my filo-0.5 compilation issues as detailed
> > in the first URI above, but no one responded to my log in the final
> > URI above.

Stefan Reinauer wrote:
> Can you post line 197 of printf.c ? It seems your source code 
> is corrupt 
> or something.

My NFS server and NFS client do not appear to be working.
It did not occur to me that NFS could be the problem,
since have used this server reliably for 2-3 years.

When I put the filo-0.5 source code on a Linux ramdisk,
it cleanly built filo.
> > I haven't previously reported my latest coreboot build issue.
> > Here it is:
> >
> > $ cd ./targets
> > $ ./buildtarget tyan/s2885
> > build_dir=tyan/s2885/s2885
> > No coreboot config script found. Rebuilding it..
> >   File 
> > "/mnt/s2u1/atom/cb/coreboot-v2-3360/util/newconfig/yapps2.py",
> > line 418
> >     gen.write(indent, "elsf update(self, gen):
> >                                              ^
>
> Same issue here:
>
> The line in my source code is:
>         gen.write(indent, "else: ")

I copied the coreboot-v2-3385 source code to a USB
pen drive and it now builds cleanly.
> Your source code is seriously corrupted. How did you download it?

I downloaded it via Firefox and maybe the FlashGot plug-in
and associated wxDownloadFast download manager.  However,
it doesn't appear to have been corrupted by the download
itself.

As mentioned above, it appears to be a problem with my
"previously" reliable GNU/Linux (PPC Gentoo based) NFS
server or the NFS client of my most recent machine.
I manually started portmap on it, so perhaps that may
be related to may corruption problems.

Thanks to everyone who responded to this RFC, including:

ron minnich
Joseph Smith
Stefan Reinauer

I still think that a coreboot Live CD (maybe a Knoppix
remastering) would be a good way to promote coreboot
adoption.

Maybe coreboot on a DSL sized business card mini-CD?  Now
that would be an impressive card to give out at shows!

Sincerely,

Ken Fuchs

[ron minnich]

On Mon, Jun 23, 2008 at 9:36 AM,   wrote:
> I sent a log of filo-0.5 compilation issues nearly two weeks
> ago as detailed in the following three URIs:
>
> http://www.coreboot.org/pipermail/coreboot/2008-June/035647.html
> http://www.coreboot.org/pipermail/coreboot/2008-June/035674.html
> http://www.coreboot.org/pipermail/coreboot/2008-June/035718.html
>
> Thanks for responding to my filo-0.5 compilation issues as detailed
> in the first URI above, but no one responded to my log in the final
> URI above.

you can't avoid the need to do a little sleuthing of your own. Let's
look at the file:

int vtxprintf(int (*tx_byte)(int byte), const char *fmt, va_list args)
{
 int len;
 unsigned long long num;
 int i, base;
 const char *s;

int flags;

int field_width;
 int precision;

int qualifier; se + value;
  cp++;
 }

What's happened here? the original is this:
int vtxprintf(int (*tx_byte)(int byte), const char *fmt, va_list args)
{
        int len;
        unsigned long long num;
        int i, base;
        const char *s;

int flags;              /* flags to number() */

int field_width;        /* width of output field */
        int precision;          /* min. # of digits for integers; max
                                   number of chars for from string */
        int qualifier;
(starts at line 185)

What's th 'se + value' stuff?

That's this:
se + value;
                cp++;
        }
        if (endp)
                *endp = (char *)cp;
        return result;
}

starts at line 55.

Then:
> $ cd ./targets
> $ ./buildtarget tyan/s2885
> build_dir=tyan/s2885/s2885
> No coreboot config script found. Rebuilding it..
>  File "/mnt/s2u1/atom/cb/coreboot-v2-3360/util/newconfig/yapps2.py",
> line 418
>    gen.write(indent, "elsf update(self, gen):

This part: gen.write(indent, "els
is line 418.

This part: update(self, gen):

is line 448.

You've got some serious file system or disk corruption.

ron