Re: [coreboot] Coreboot on X230 and Dualboot: works = Qubes 3.2 + Win 10 Enterprise

[One7two99]

Hello Peter,

-------- Original Message --------

  Subject: Re: [coreboot] Coreboot on X230 and Dualboot
/ How to make it work
 Local Time: September 23, 2017 10:01 PM

>> VGA init can be proper without Windows being able to boot.
I know, this was the setup I had before, but having a PC which is unable to run windows is
sometimes a no-go :-)

  Windows will require SeaBIOS. (In theory perhaps
TianoCore+CorebootPkg
 works too, but I wouldn"t bet on that.)
 Windows will also require the VGA BIOS.
I am currently only using SeaBIOS and the vga.rom and SUCCESS, I am able to boot into my
Qubes 3.2 installation AND (!) my Windows 10 Enteprise, whis is great as this was broken
after switching to Coreboot.

  If you have SeaBIOS then I recommend letting SeaBIOS
run the VGA BIOS.
I don't really understand what this means, when I document my setup/coreboot
configuration, I am happy for any suggestion how to improve it.

  1) Devices
> Add a Video Bios Table (VBT) binary to CBFS (yes or no?)
 No - the VGA BIOS
creates a VBT. Is that not documented sufficiently?
Maybe I don't get it, but in menuconfig I have disabled this option.

  2) Devices
> Graphic initialization (currently: use native graphics init)
 (should I switch this to: Run VGA Option Roms?)
 No - disable graphics init in
coreboot and let SeaBIOS run your VGA BIOS.
Ok, I'll try that and will disable graphic initalization in coreboot.
As mentioned with the current setting I can boot into Linux and Windows 10.
Is there any benefit disabling native graphics init in coreboot?

  As you can find in SeaBIOS docs, that requires the VGA
BIOS to be
 stored with the correct name in CBFS, which coreboot may or may not
 do automatically. (It should, but bugs.)
 If you store the VGA BIOS with a name in CBFS containing a special
 subdirectory (I think vgaroms/) then the rest of the filename doesn"t
 matter.
I think some documentation here would be great, as I am currently a bit lost.
What I got from your reply, it is possible that coreboot will use the  vga.rom but it can
also be handled by SeaBIOS, do I need to modify any additional things there (in SeaBIOS)?

  You can of course always add the VGA BIOS file to CBFS
manually, if you
 want it to have a particular name in CBFS. It is not neccessary that the
 coreboot build system adds it.
I need to do some more reading about CBFS ... currently I am just happy that I got
coreboot working for dualbooting Qubes and Win 10.

I'll do some more testing to see if everything works (external display /
standby/resume / LTE/etc)

What has been improved already:
Booting up Qubes OS doesn't can also be done with graphical but, before including
vga.rom into coreboot I had to edit grub.
In order to enter my passphrase to unlock my LUKS encrypted drive in Qubes I had to change
grub to boot in "console mode" instead of relying on graphics:

sudo nano /etc/default/grub
GRUB_TERMINAL_OUTPUT="vga_text"
Remove rhgb quiet from GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX

I've rolled back these changes and now I get the graphical splash screen during boot.
Nice:-)

[799]