[GSoC-2015] Interested in Participating - Discussing Ideas

[Varad Gautam]

Hi,

I would like to participate in Google Summer of Code 2015 with coreboot to 
work on one of the following ideas:

- Enable coreboot + Tianocore over an ARM board: The Ideas page mentions 
something similar [1], but I think the hardware details are to be finalized. I 
worked on adding BeagleBone Black support to Tianocore during GSoC-2014 with 
Linaro, and so have some experience with JTAG, ARM bringup and bootloaders. 
Which mainboard would be the intended target? I have a HiKey board (HiSilicon 
Kirin 6220 Cortex-A53 ARM64) [2] which could be used - I'm checking if 
coreboot already supports a similar SoC to base the port on.

- Eliminate Video BIOS requirement for AMD/ATI graphics init: I understand 
this would involve dumping AtomBIOS ROM and performing those initializations 
under coreboot. I came across atomdis [3] and am looking for a Video BIOS ROM 
I could try disassembling. I need some input on how I could go about the 
implementation of this idea - what hardware would be suitable / what the boot 
flow would be. Although I haven't worked with the Linux graphics stack yet, I 
would like to get my hands dirty. I am currently looking through the resources 
at [4].

I recently tried running coreboot + SeaBIOS + SYSLINUX under QEMU (as 
suggested on the Easy tasks page [5]), and it seems to work alright - but is 
it possible to find a SYSLINUX ELF image so I can eliminate SeaBIOS?

I would be glad to have your suggestions on how I could get started.

[1] http://www.coreboot.org/Project_Ideas#coreboot_ARM_SoC.27s_mainboard_port
[2] https://www.96boards.org/products/hikey/
[3] 
http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=article&item=amd_atombios_dumper&a...
[4] http://www.coreboot.org/Project_Ideas#Native_graphics_init
[5] http://www.coreboot.org/Easy_projects#Add.2Ftest_new_supported_payloads

Thanks,
Varad

[Marc Jones]

Hi Varad,

Welcome! It is great to hear that you are interested in coreboot GSoC.

On Thu, Mar 5, 2015 at 8:44 AM Varad Gautam  wrote:
> Hi,
>
> I would like to participate in Google Summer of Code 2015 with coreboot to
> work on one of the following ideas:
> Enable coreboot + Tianocore over an ARM board: The Ideas page mentions
>
> something similar [1], but I think the hardware details are to be
> finalized. I
> worked on adding BeagleBone Black support to Tianocore during GSoC-2014
> with
> Linaro, and so have some experience with JTAG, ARM bringup and bootloaders.
> Which mainboard would be the intended target? I have a HiKey board
> (HiSilicon
> Kirin 6220 Cortex-A53 ARM64) [2] which could be used - I'm checking if
> coreboot already supports a similar SoC to base the port on.

There are a number of ARM SOCs in development that are being merged from
chromium.org (chromebook). Take a look at src/soc and src/arch. This is a
pretty big task, but might be a good match if you have done some similar
work in past projects.
> Eliminate Video BIOS requirement for AMD/ATI graphics init: I understand
>
> this would involve dumping AtomBIOS ROM and performing those
> initializations
> under coreboot. I came across atomdis [3] and am looking for a Video BIOS
> ROM
> I could try disassembling. I need some input on how I could go about the
> implementation of this idea - what hardware would be suitable / what the
> boot
> flow would be. Although I haven't worked with the Linux graphics stack
> yet, I
> would like to get my hands dirty. I am currently looking through the
> resources
> at [4].

You might look at Gizmo2.
> I recently tried running coreboot + SeaBIOS + SYSLINUX under QEMU (as
> suggested on the Easy tasks page [5]), and it seems to work alright - but
> is
> it possible to find a SYSLINUX ELF image so I can eliminate SeaBIOS?

I don't know if anyone has made a SYSLINUX elf. Any small kernelvmlinuz and
initrd could be used.
http://www.coreboot.org/QEMU_Build_Tutorial#Building_a_Linux_kernel_payload
> I would be glad to have your suggestions on how I could get started.

You can join #coreboot on IR and , start looking at the patches on Gerrit
and get a feel for what is being developed.

Again, Welcome!
Marc
> [1] http://www.coreboot.org/Project_Ideas#coreboot_ARM_
> SoC.27s_mainboard_port
> [2] https://www.96boards.org/products/hikey/
> [3]
> http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=article&item=amd_
> atombios_dumper&num=1
> [4] http://www.coreboot.org/Project_Ideas#Native_graphics_init
> [5] http://www.coreboot.org/Easy_projects#Add.2Ftest_new_
> supported_payloads
>
> Thanks,
> Varad