[LinuxBIOS] Question About AMD board and BIOS programmer for LinuxBIOS

[Ning (Michael) Qu]

Hi, all,

We want to do some experiments in LinuxBIOS on AMD mainboard. But as
you know, not all mainboard are supported by LinuxBIOS. We want to
know what kind of mainboard (development board) we should buy to run
LinuxBIOS on it easily. Could you give us some suggestions?

And another question is, if we have make sure what mainboard to buy.
Then which programmer should we buy? We are planning to order BIOS
programmer from here
http://www.ioss.com.tw/web/English/RD1BIOSSavior/SelectionSheet.html,
but it still depends on whether we can find a fitful programmer for
our new board.

Thank you very much for your help!

Best,

[David Hendricks]

Yinghai Lu ( yinghai.lu at amd.com ) is the man to ask about that. He
suggested the following boards in response to a similar question asked
earlier today (
http://www.openbios.org/pipermail/linuxbios/2007-February/018451.html ) :

Gigabyte M57sli with AM2 socket
Tyan s2915
Tyan s2912
Supermicro h8dae

I recommend purchasing a BIOS Savior device however the BIOS Savior is not
in itself a programmer. Fortunately, you can use the Flashrom utility (
http://linuxbios.org/Flashrom ) provided for in the LinuxBIOSv2/util/
directory.

Best of luck!

On 2/23/07, Ning (Michael) Qu  wrote:
> Hi, all,
>
> We want to do some experiments in LinuxBIOS on AMD mainboard. But as
> you know, not all mainboard are supported by LinuxBIOS. We want to
> know what kind of mainboard (development board) we should buy to run
> LinuxBIOS on it easily. Could you give us some suggestions?
>
> And another question is, if we have make sure what mainboard to buy.
> Then which programmer should we buy? We are planning to order BIOS
> programmer from here
> http://www.ioss.com.tw/web/English/RD1BIOSSavior/SelectionSheet.html,
> but it still depends on whether we can find a fitful programmer for
> our new board.
>
> Thank you very much for your help!
>
> Best,

[LinuxBIOS] Question About AMD board and BIOS programmer for LinuxBIOS

[Corey Osgood]

David Hendricks wrote:
<snip>
> I recommend purchasing a BIOS Savior device however the BIOS Savior is
> not in itself a programmer. Fortunately, you can use the Flashrom
> utility ( http://linuxbios.org/Flashrom ) provided for in the
> LinuxBIOSv2/util/ directory.
> And another question is, if we have make sure what mainboard to buy.
> Then which programmer should we buy? We are planning to order BIOS
> programmer from here
> http://www.ioss.com.tw/web/English/RD1BIOSSavior/SelectionSheet.html,
> but it still depends on whether we can find a fitful programmer for
> our new board.

Also, the BIOS saviors are no longer being manufactured, so you might
have some difficulty finding the one you need. IOSS is no longer selling
them directly, but some vendors do still have some in stock, froogle can
probably help you with finding them. I also highly recommend the BIOS
Savior, I've got two (one DIP and one PLCC) and they work great.

-Corey

[yhlu]

ROM emulator with USB2 interface

Make sure your MB have serial port conector.

YH

On 2/23/07, Corey Osgood  wrote:
> David Hendricks wrote:
>
> <snip>
> > I recommend purchasing a BIOS Savior device however the BIOS Savior is
> > not in itself a programmer. Fortunately, you can use the Flashrom
> > utility ( http://linuxbios.org/Flashrom ) provided for in the
> > LinuxBIOSv2/util/ directory.
> > And another question is, if we have make sure what mainboard to buy.
> > Then which programmer should we buy? We are planning to order BIOS
> > programmer from here
> > http://www.ioss.com.tw/web/English/RD1BIOSSavior/SelectionSheet.html,
> > but it still depends on whether we can find a fitful programmer for
> > our new board.
>
> Also, the BIOS saviors are no longer being manufactured, so you might
> have some difficulty finding the one you need. IOSS is no longer selling
> them directly, but some vendors do still have some in stock, froogle can
> probably help you with finding them. I also highly recommend the BIOS
> Savior, I've got two (one DIP and one PLCC) and they work great.
>
> -Corey

[Ning (Michael) Qu]

Hi,

What is ROM emulator? You mean it is a replacement for BIOS Saivor?
Thanks for your help! And the current LinuxBIOS (v1 or v2) has support
all these AMD montherboards?

Gigabyte M57sli with AM2 socket
Tyan s2915
Tyan s2912
Supermicro h8dae

Best,
Ning

On 2/24/07, yhlu  wrote:
> ROM emulator with USB2 interface
>
> Make sure your MB have serial port conector.
>
> YH
>
> On 2/23/07, Corey Osgood  wrote:
> > David Hendricks wrote:
> >
> > <snip>
> > > I recommend purchasing a BIOS Savior device however the BIOS Savior is
> > > not in itself a programmer. Fortunately, you can use the Flashrom
> > > utility ( http://linuxbios.org/Flashrom ) provided for in the
> > > LinuxBIOSv2/util/ directory.
> > > And another question is, if we have make sure what mainboard to buy.
> > > Then which programmer should we buy? We are planning to order BIOS
> > > programmer from here
> > > http://www.ioss.com.tw/web/English/RD1BIOSSavior/SelectionSheet.html,
> > > but it still depends on whether we can find a fitful programmer for
> > > our new board.
> >
> > Also, the BIOS saviors are no longer being manufactured, so you might
> > have some difficulty finding the one you need. IOSS is no longer selling
> > them directly, but some vendors do still have some in stock, froogle can
> > probably help you with finding them. I also highly recommend the BIOS
> > Savior, I've got two (one DIP and one PLCC) and they work great.
> >
> > -Corey

[Uwe Hermann]

Hi,

On Sat, Feb 24, 2007 at 02:04:12PM -0500, Ning (Michael) Qu wrote:
> Thanks for your help! And the current LinuxBIOS (v1 or v2) has support
> all these AMD montherboards?
>
> Gigabyte M57sli with AM2 socket
> Tyan s2915
> Tyan s2912
> Supermicro h8dae

v1 doesn't support any of them.

v2 will have support for the Gigabyte M57sli (but not yet, one patch is
missing, but will enter svn soon).
At the same time the s2912 will be working.

I'm not sure whether the s2915 or the h8dae are working, they're not
supported out of the box (yet?).

Yinghai, should they work with (almost) the same code as the s2912 and h8dmr?

Thanks, Uwe.

[Ning (Michael) Qu]

Hi,

Thanks for your reminding. And perhaps in official version, all of
these mainboard are not supported yet? I am just a little confusing
about that :)

Best,
Ning

On 2/25/07, Uwe Hermann  wrote:
> Hi,
>
> On Sat, Feb 24, 2007 at 02:04:12PM -0500, Ning (Michael) Qu wrote:
> > Thanks for your help! And the current LinuxBIOS (v1 or v2) has support
> > all these AMD montherboards?
> >
> > Gigabyte M57sli with AM2 socket
> > Tyan s2915
> > Tyan s2912
> > Supermicro h8dae
>
> v1 doesn't support any of them.
>
> v2 will have support for the Gigabyte M57sli (but not yet, one patch is
> missing, but will enter svn soon).
> At the same time the s2912 will be working.
>
> I'm not sure whether the s2915 or the h8dae are working, they're not
> supported out of the box (yet?).
>
> Yinghai, should they work with (almost) the same code as the s2912 and h8dmr?
> Thanks, Uwe.
>
> http://www.hermann-uwe.de  | http://www.holsham-traders.de
> http://www.crazy-hacks.org | http://www.unmaintained-free-software.org
>
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[LinuxBIOS] Question About AMD board and BIOS programmer for LinuxBIOS

[David Hendricks]

I suppose the best thing for you to do is browse the targets
( http://www.openbios.org/viewvc/trunk/LinuxBIOSv2/targets/ ), find
specific motherboard (Such as tyan/s2912), and ask if anyone can confirm
that it will work "out of the box."

On Sun, 25 Feb 2007 17:42:44 -0500
"Ning (Michael) Qu"  wrote:
> Hi,
>
> Thanks for your reminding. And perhaps in official version, all of
> these mainboard are not supported yet? I am just a little confusing
> about that :)
>
> Best,
> Ning

[Ning (Michael) Qu]

Hi, David

Thanks for your advice! I will summarize from the targets directory
and ask the question again :)

Best,
Ning

On 2/25/07, David Hendricks  wrote:
> I suppose the best thing for you to do is browse the targets
> ( http://www.openbios.org/viewvc/trunk/LinuxBIOSv2/targets/ ), find
> specific motherboard (Such as tyan/s2912), and ask if anyone can confirm
> that it will work "out of the box."
>
> On Sun, 25 Feb 2007 17:42:44 -0500
> "Ning (Michael) Qu"  wrote:
> > Hi,
> >
> > Thanks for your reminding. And perhaps in official version, all of
> > these mainboard are not supported yet? I am just a little confusing
> > about that :)
> >
> > Best,
> > Ning

[Ning (Michael) Qu]

Hi, David

Thanks for your reply! And so the support of the motherboard you
suggest is already merged into LinuxBIOS? And are you sure that BIOS
saviors are no longer being manufactured? I find that their website is
still there but no recent update.

On 2/23/07, Corey Osgood  wrote:
> David Hendricks wrote:
>
> <snip>
> > I recommend purchasing a BIOS Savior device however the BIOS Savior is
> > not in itself a programmer. Fortunately, you can use the Flashrom
> > utility ( http://linuxbios.org/Flashrom ) provided for in the
> > LinuxBIOSv2/util/ directory.
> > And another question is, if we have make sure what mainboard to buy.
> > Then which programmer should we buy? We are planning to order BIOS
> > programmer from here
> > http://www.ioss.com.tw/web/English/RD1BIOSSavior/SelectionSheet.html,
> > but it still depends on whether we can find a fitful programmer for
> > our new board.
>
> Also, the BIOS saviors are no longer being manufactured, so you might
> have some difficulty finding the one you need. IOSS is no longer selling
> them directly, but some vendors do still have some in stock, froogle can
> probably help you with finding them. I also highly recommend the BIOS
> Savior, I've got two (one DIP and one PLCC) and they work great.
>
> -Corey

[Segher Boessenkool]

> I recommend purchasing a BIOS Savior device however the BIOS Savior is 
> not in itself a programmer. Fortunately, you can use the Flashrom 
> utility ( http://linuxbios.org/Flashrom ) provided for in the 
> LinuxBIOSv2/util/ directory.

If things go terribly wrong (and they will if you try
long and/or hard enough), you still want an external
programmer, it's the ultimate safety net against
bricking your boxes.  A BIOSSavior (or any other way
to program the flash in-system in a system that won't
boot correctly) is very nice during development of
course, but not strictly necessary, you can pull and
program flash chips all day if you have too ;-)

Segher