Vga bios?

[Adam Talbot]

If i have the rom image for the graphics card rom, can I load that into linuxbios?
-Adam

[Richard Smith]

--- Adam Talbot  wrote:
> If i have the rom image for the graphics card rom,
> can I load that into linuxbios?

Maybe.

There are 2 methods of doing VGA bios with LB.  Both
of these methods are for v1. I can't speak for v2
since I haven't made the switch yet.

Method one is to enable the real mode IDT stuff that
sets up a 16 bit enviroment and jumps into the
vgabios.  I've attempted this but never took it far
enough to actually make it work.  Search the archives
for 'vgabios' or 'vga bios' and you should find lots
of posts describing what to set.

The second option and the one that I'm most familiar
with is using ADLO.  ADLO is a glue layer to the BIOS
used int the bochs project which attempts to set up a
legacy BIOS enviroment.

Using ADLO and Bochs, I've made LILO and several
vgabios's work under LinuxBios with our Intel 440bx
chipset.

What chipset are you using?

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[Adam Talbot]

Humm  OK, the main point in asking the question was coming from the stand
point that it is easy to obtain a vga rom. Most standard bios images are
just a zip file.  There are tools on the web that allow one to unzip a bios
rom file and grab the rom for the graphics controller. This was an idea that
I was toying around with that I think could help the whole linuxbios group
of people. I am not at that part yet.  Both my board do not boot linux bios
yet.  The Pentium M board is not supported, yet.  The P3 board has the super
IO in the southbridge makeing life harder. When I get one of these board
booting linuxbios then I will be willing to try to get VGA bios running.
-Adam Talbot

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Richard Smith" 
To: "Adam Talbot" ; 
Sent: Wednesday, December 22, 2004 1:01 AM
Subject: Re: Vga bios?
> --- Adam Talbot  wrote:
> > If i have the rom image for the graphics card rom,
> > can I load that into linuxbios?
>
> Maybe.
>
> There are 2 methods of doing VGA bios with LB.  Both
> of these methods are for v1. I can't speak for v2
> since I haven't made the switch yet.
>
> Method one is to enable the real mode IDT stuff that
> sets up a 16 bit enviroment and jumps into the
> vgabios.  I've attempted this but never took it far
> enough to actually make it work.  Search the archives
> for 'vgabios' or 'vga bios' and you should find lots
> of posts describing what to set.
>
> The second option and the one that I'm most familiar
> with is using ADLO.  ADLO is a glue layer to the BIOS
> used int the bochs project which attempts to set up a
> legacy BIOS enviroment.
>
> Using ADLO and Bochs, I've made LILO and several
> vgabios's work under LinuxBios with our Intel 440bx
> chipset.
>
> What chipset are you using?
>
> Do you Yahoo!?
> Yahoo! Mail - Easier than ever with enhanced search. Learn more.
> http://info.mail.yahoo.com/mail_250

[Adam Sulmicki]

On Wed, 22 Dec 2004, Adam Talbot wrote:
> Humm  OK, the main point in asking the question was coming from the stand
> point that it is easy to obtain a vga rom. Most standard bios images are
> just a zip file.  There are tools on the web that allow one to unzip a bios
> rom file and grab the rom for the graphics controller. This was an idea that

it is trivial to grab bios image. you just run 'dd' under linuxbios while 
booted from pcbios. In that way you don't have to wonder what they used to 
pack/compress the bios image.

what is tricky is that the vga bios usually expect to run in 16 bit mode 
and with some of pc bios routines available. There's Ollie's testvga, 
there's ADLO which both attemp to solve this issue.
> Both my board do not boot linux bios yet.
> When I get one of these board booting linuxbios then I will be willing 
> to try to get VGA bios running.

good idea.