One more student would like to participate in GSoC

[Tadas Slotkus]

Hello,

I am a student at Kaunas University of Technology in Lithuania, studying
Informatics Engineering second course and I would love to participate in
GSoC.
I have received some datasheets from VIA for unsupported chipsets, I
would like port them.
I have good soldering skills and am able to make small printed circuit
boards. Some of my homemade art PCBs:
http://www.papile.projektas.lt/imgs/usb/ 
So I have to setup a convenient flashing system for future development
which would be brick unaware. I am interested in these ideas:

1) flashrom remote flashing with modified SerialICE - needs to add
flashing functionality. With SerialICE we won't need RAM working, so it
will help developing chipset code. After reset SerialICE flashing part
will be activated with dosens of bytes receiveid through serial port,
and communication with HOST system will be initiated (HOST system then
will send commands for flashing). If SerialICE won't get any bytes from
serial port in a few milliseconds it will let the coreboot to run. We
would use flashrom's codebase for flashing protocols...

2) flashrom as payload - for such implementation we should make a config
system where we would choose which flash chip(s) are needed to be
included in our payload's build. The rom image might be transferred
through serial port. But payload needs RAM, so this idea is in
discussion list.

The first idea would be the primary objective for me. What do you think?

Thanks,
Tadas Slotkus
P.S. I have been around coreboot for some time. My earlier email in
mailing-lists: [e-mail], current irc nick: mrtadis)

[Marc Jones]

On Mon, Apr 4, 2011 at 10:51 AM, Tadas Slotkus  wrote:
> Hello,
>
> I am a student at Kaunas University of Technology in Lithuania, studying
> Informatics Engineering second course and I would love to participate in
> GSoC.
> I have received some datasheets from VIA for unsupported chipsets, I
> would like port them.
> I have good soldering skills and am able to make small printed circuit
> boards. Some of my homemade art PCBs:
> http://www.papile.projektas.lt/imgs/usb/
> So I have to setup a convenient flashing system for future development
> which would be brick unaware. I am interested in these ideas:
> flashrom remote flashing with modified SerialICE - needs to add
>
> flashing functionality. With SerialICE we won't need RAM working, so it
> will help developing chipset code. After reset SerialICE flashing part
> will be activated with dosens of bytes receiveid through serial port,
> and communication with HOST system will be initiated (HOST system then
> will send commands for flashing). If SerialICE won't get any bytes from
> serial port in a few milliseconds it will let the coreboot to run. We
> would use flashrom's codebase for flashing protocols...
> flashrom as payload - for such implementation we should make a config
>
> system where we would choose which flash chip(s) are needed to be
> included in our payload's build. The rom image might be transferred
> through serial port. But payload needs RAM, so this idea is in
> discussion list.
>
> The first idea would be the primary objective for me. What do you think?
>
> Thanks,
> Tadas Slotkus
> P.S. I have been around coreboot for some time. My earlier email in
> mailing-lists: [e-mail], current irc nick: mrtadis)

Hi Tadas,

We are happy that you are interested in a coreboot GSoC project.

You have an interesting idea. Have you tried running SerialICE on a
platform? I think that the main items you will need to consider in
your proposal is the integration of SerialICE and coreboot. How will
the early bootblock sections work? On the flashrom side, you will need
to consider what the normal OS and library calls will do in this mode.
Also, how will it integrate with flashrom so that it stays up to date
with current chipsets and flash devices.

Marc