Graeme Russ wrote:
E350, I'm inclined to assume that this could be used as a solid foundation for the I35CT. Is this a valid assumption to make?
Sure.
What would be the best approach to porting coreboot to the I35CT?
Build an E350M1 image and try it out.
What tricks and traps can I expect?
The board will not boot and you will need to learn how to debug firmware. You will also need to study the AMD-contributed code under vendorcode/ and try to make sense of the hundreds of settings that you will need to adapt to your board design, after you have reverse engineered how the mainboard layout differs from the E350M1.
Absolute minimum requirements are some kind of flash programmer and a null modem serial cable. A logic analyzer is helpful.
Depending on your experience and skill should expect to spend some months on the project.
//Peter
Hi Peter,
Thanks for the quick response
On Tue, Oct 16, 2012 at 1:34 PM, Peter Stuge peter@stuge.se wrote:
Graeme Russ wrote:
E350, I'm inclined to assume that this could be used as a solid foundation for the I35CT. Is this a valid assumption to make?
Sure.
What would be the best approach to porting coreboot to the I35CT?
Build an E350M1 image and try it out.
Figured that would be the case :)
What tricks and traps can I expect?
The board will not boot and you will need to learn how to debug firmware. You will also need to study the AMD-contributed code under vendorcode/ and try to make sense of the hundreds of settings that you will need to adapt to your board design, after you have reverse engineered how the mainboard layout differs from the E350M1.
Absolute minimum requirements are some kind of flash programmer and a null modem serial cable. A logic analyzer is helpful.
My investigations so far have led me to the fact that Qotom make the PC - The motherboard is made by somebody else. I don't know the motherboard is made by, but most likely a not widely know Chinese manufacturer selling en-mass to EOMs. I will need to physically remove the board and look for some identifying features.
So far I have found a IT8718F LPC I/O chip, so the bios is in an SPI flash. I have an in-circuit SPI programmer, but there is no header on the motherboard to get at the flash chip - I may need to jury-rig some kind of connection to the flash chip (as soon as I locate it). Apart from the APU, South Bridge, IT8718F and SPI flash there are only a couple of 8-pin chips plus the Ethernet PHY and (I think) a HDMI driver.
The APU and south bridge are, of course, covered by heatsinks. Can I assume a particular south-bridge chip (of course I can just install Linux and find out)
Depending on your experience and skill should expect to spend some months on the project.
I have a fair bit of experience (x86 port of U-Boot) so once I get access to the Flash, I should be able to hack it pretty quickly.
Does the E350M1 port fully support booting and running Linux (including PCIe etc.)?
Regards,
Graeme