No output on EPIA-M serial port

[Shawn Perkin]

Hello all,

I'm currently in the process of trying to get Linuxbios to work on my
Via EPIA-M with no success. I have successfully complied Etherboot 5.2.0
as my payload, and performed a successful build of Linuxbios. I burned
the image without any errors and rebooted the system. I then had
absolutely no output on either serial port, or local display. I
currently have 256 MB of ram in the unit, and have tried a build with
and without the extracted vgabios.bin. I have included my config file
for your review. Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Shawn

#
# LinuxBIOS config file for: VIA epia-m mini-itx
#

target /usr/local/build/epia-m

# via epia
mainboard via/epia-m

# Enable Serial Console for debugging
option SERIAL_CONSOLE=1
#option SERIAL_POST=1
option TTYS0_BAUD=115200
#option TTYS0_BAUD=57600
option HAVE_FRAMEBUFFER=1
option CONFIG_VGABIOS=1
option CONFIG_REALMODE_IDT=1
dir src/bioscall
option CONFIG_PCIBIOS=1
option VGABIOS_START=0xfffe0000
#addaction romimage dd if=../vgabios.bin of=romimage bs=65536 seek=2
conv=sync conv=notrunc
option CONFIG_EPIAMVERSIONSTRING="5.0.0E-" __DATE__ " " __TIME__
#target /ram/freebios/obj
#payload /code/bootfiles/etherboot/via6105m.ebi

option DEFAULT_CONSOLE_LOGLEVEL=9
option DEBUG=1

# Use 256KB Standard Flash as Normal BIOS 
option RAMTEST=1
option USE_GENERIC_ROM=1
option STD_FLASH=1
#option ZKERNEL_START=0xfffc0000
option ROM_SIZE=262144

# payload size = 192KB
option PAYLOAD_SIZE=196608

# use ELF Loader to load Etherboot
option USE_ELF_BOOT=1

# Use Etherboot as our payload 
payload /home/shawnp/bios/etherboot-5.2.0/src/bin/via-rhine.elf 
# payload /opt/cwlinux/memtest86/memtest

[Greg Watson]

Does the EPIA-M have a 256KB flash or a 512KB flash? I just ran into 
this problem with the EPIA. If you flash the wrong size image then 
nothing works at all.

Greg

On 24/03/2004, at 3:02 PM, Shawn Perkin wrote:
> Hello all,
>
> I’m currently in the process of trying to get Linuxbios to work on my 
> Via EPIA-M with no success. I have successfully complied Etherboot 
> 5.2.0 as my payload, and performed a successful build of Linuxbios. I 
> burned the image without any errors and rebooted the system. I then 
> had absolutely no output on either serial port, or local display. I 
> currently have 256 MB of ram in the unit, and have tried a build with 
> and without the extracted vgabios.bin. I have included my config file 
> for your review. Any help would be greatly appreciated.
>
> Shawn
>
> #
>  # LinuxBIOS config file for: VIA epia-m mini-itx
>  #
>
> target /usr/local/build/epia-m
>
> # via epia
>  mainboard via/epia-m
>
> # Enable Serial Console for debugging
>  option SERIAL_CONSOLE=1
>  #option SERIAL_POST=1
>  option TTYS0_BAUD=115200
>  #option TTYS0_BAUD=57600
>  option HAVE_FRAMEBUFFER=1
>  option CONFIG_VGABIOS=1
>  option CONFIG_REALMODE_IDT=1
>  dir src/bioscall
>  option CONFIG_PCIBIOS=1
>  option VGABIOS_START=0xfffe0000
>  #addaction romimage dd if=../vgabios.bin of=romimage bs=65536 seek=2 
> conv=sync conv=notrunc
>  option CONFIG_EPIAMVERSIONSTRING="5.0.0E-" __DATE__ " " __TIME__
>  #target /ram/freebios/obj
>  #payload /code/bootfiles/etherboot/via6105m.ebi
>
> option DEFAULT_CONSOLE_LOGLEVEL=9
>  option DEBUG=1
>
> # Use 256KB Standard Flash as Normal BIOS
>  option RAMTEST=1
>  option USE_GENERIC_ROM=1
>  option STD_FLASH=1
>  #option ZKERNEL_START=0xfffc0000
>  option ROM_SIZE=262144
>
> # payload size = 192KB
>  option PAYLOAD_SIZE=196608
>
> # use ELF Loader to load Etherboot
>  option USE_ELF_BOOT=1
>
> # Use Etherboot as our payload
>  payload /home/shawnp/bios/etherboot-5.2.0/src/bin/via-rhine.elf
>  # payload /opt/cwlinux/memtest86/memtest

[ron minnich]

send me your linuxbios.rom and I'll take a quick look at it.

do you have a POST card?

ron

[Niki Waibel]

serial port speed was an issue months ago. dont know if that has been fixed.
try to lower the speed on the serial terminal (if you've configured 115200, try
57600)
niki

On 24-Mar-2004 Shawn Perkin wrote:
> Hello all,
>
> I'm currently in the process of trying to get Linuxbios to work on my
> Via EPIA-M with no success. I have successfully complied Etherboot 5.2.0
> as my payload, and performed a successful build of Linuxbios. I burned
> the image without any errors and rebooted the system. I then had
> absolutely no output on either serial port, or local display. I
> currently have 256 MB of ram in the unit, and have tried a build with
> and without the extracted vgabios.bin. I have included my config file
> for your review. Any help would be greatly appreciated.
>
> Shawn
>
> #
> # LinuxBIOS config file for: VIA epia-m mini-itx
> #
>
> target /usr/local/build/epia-m
>
> # via epia
> mainboard via/epia-m
>
> # Enable Serial Console for debugging
> option SERIAL_CONSOLE=1
> #option SERIAL_POST=1
> option TTYS0_BAUD=115200
> #option TTYS0_BAUD=57600
> option HAVE_FRAMEBUFFER=1
> option CONFIG_VGABIOS=1
> option CONFIG_REALMODE_IDT=1
> dir src/bioscall
> option CONFIG_PCIBIOS=1
> option VGABIOS_START=0xfffe0000
> #addaction romimage dd if=../vgabios.bin of=romimage bs=65536 seek=2
> conv=sync conv=notrunc
> option CONFIG_EPIAMVERSIONSTRING="5.0.0E-" __DATE__ " " __TIME__
> #target /ram/freebios/obj
> #payload /code/bootfiles/etherboot/via6105m.ebi
>
> option DEFAULT_CONSOLE_LOGLEVEL=9
> option DEBUG=1
>
> # Use 256KB Standard Flash as Normal BIOS 
> option RAMTEST=1
> option USE_GENERIC_ROM=1
> option STD_FLASH=1
> #option ZKERNEL_START=0xfffc0000
> option ROM_SIZE=262144
>
> # payload size = 192KB
> option PAYLOAD_SIZE=196608
>
> # use ELF Loader to load Etherboot
> option USE_ELF_BOOT=1
>
> # Use Etherboot as our payload 
> payload /home/shawnp/bios/etherboot-5.2.0/src/bin/via-rhine.elf 
> # payload /opt/cwlinux/memtest86/memtest