[LinuxBIOS] Via Epia ML5000, LinuxBios, Filo -- 99 % there, need help with last 1%!

[Eric Poulsen]

Hi all,

I've gotten LinuxBIOS working without much of a hitch, but I'm trying to 
get the VGA console working.  I've been looking through the email 
archives without much success, then I found this page:

http://linuxbios.org/index.php/VGA_support

I have a Via Epia ML5000 board.  My question is specific to this part, 
found at the above URL:

/If you want to use the onboard VGA chip, you have to do the following 
in additional to the CONFIG options described above. /

/1. in MB Config.lb You need to specify for your onboard VGA /

/device pci 9.0 on # PCI
/

/        chip drivers/pci/onboard
                device pci 9.0 on end
                register "rom_address" = "0xfff80000" #512k image
                #register "rom_address" = "0xfff00000" #1M image
        end
end/

Is PCI 9.0 the correct value for the Via Epia-M onboard CLE266 video?  
Is there a way to find out, such as lspci?

What about the "rom_address" field -- Can someone explain what this is, 
and how to set it properly?

Thanks

-- Eric

[LinuxBIOS] Via Epia ML5000, LinuxBios, Filo -- 99 there, need help with last 1 !

[Daniel Parthey]

Eric Poulsen schrieb:
> I'm trying to get the VGA console working.
> I've been looking through the email archives without much success,
> then I found this page:
>
> http://linuxbios.org/index.php/VGA_support
>
> I have a Via Epia ML5000 board.

Note that the ML Board is slightly different from the M board and target,
e.g. firewire, cardbus and second raiser card support is missing.

You should prepend an original VGA BIOS from and old VIA M 1.13 BIOS:
http://www.via.com.tw/download/mainboards/1/0/i0100113.bin
You can extract the VGA image from the BIOS image with Award BIOS Editor:
http://awdbedit.sf.net

You might have a look into my pdf document where the setup is described:
http://archiv.tu-chemnitz.de/pub/2006/0066/data/studienarbeit.pdf
Please read section 4.2.1

Also have a look into my patches under ./bios/linuxbios/install/patches/ of
http://archiv.tu-chemnitz.de/pub/2006/0066/data/dateien.tar.gz
Some of the changes you might consider useful for the ML board.
> /1. in MB Config.lb You need to specify for your onboard VGA /
> /device pci 9.0 on # PCI
> /        chip drivers/pci/onboard
>                device pci 9.0 on end
>                register "rom_address" = "0xfff80000" #512k image
>                #register "rom_address" = "0xfff00000" #1M image
>        end
> end/

I did not change anything of this section.

I can confirm that factory VGA is working with LinuxBIOSv2 r2169 on an
EPIA ML-6000EA board. The only remaining problem is that after any
kernel soft "reboot", the screen content is crippled and the machine hangs.
After each hard reset or power cycle the machine starts fine.

HTH,
Daniel.

[LinuxBIOS] Via Epia ML5000, LinuxBios, Filo -- 99 % there, need help with last 1%!

[Stefan Reinauer]

Hi Eric,
> I've gotten LinuxBIOS working without much of a hitch, but I'm trying to get
> the VGA console working.  I've been looking through the email archives without
> much success, then I found this page:

[..]
> device pci 9.0 on # PCI

[..]
> Is PCI 9.0 the correct value for the Via Epia-M onboard CLE266 video?  Is there
> a way to find out, such as lspci?

Can you send a LinuxBIOS boot log to the list? So someone with a working Epia
can compare this.
> What about the "rom_address" field -- Can someone explain what this is, and how
> to set it properly?

It's the physical address to the gfx bios image. If you want LinuxBIOS
to initialize VGA, you need to grad this rom image from a legacy bios
and pack it in front of the LinuxBIOS image.

Stefan