Debugging the linuxBIOS code

Hi,

Is there a recommended way of debugging LinuxBIOS code.

I burnt my FLASHROM with LinuxBIOS, nothing came 
    up at all. Not a single message came at the serial Output.
    I knew that my North bridge code has issues, but still 
    something should have come. I guess..

I had connected the serial out of my PC to another PC
    and I am using an Windows HyperTerminal to view
    the messages. 
    Should it not show something at all even if north bridge code
    is broken.

Could anyone give their views on this one..

Regards
Deepak

[siva]

Hi,

You should get LinuxBIOS banner message even if your northbridge
initialization is not correct.
I think there is some problem in your serial port setting. Check it out.

-Siva

----- Original Message -----
From: 
To: 
Sent: Wednesday, April 23, 2003 9:44 AM
Subject: Debugging the linuxBIOS code
> Hi,
> Is there a recommended way of debugging LinuxBIOS code.
>
> I burnt my FLASHROM with LinuxBIOS, nothing came
> up at all. Not a single message came at the serial Output.
> I knew that my North bridge code has issues, but still
> something should have come. I guess..
>
> I had connected the serial out of my PC to another PC
> and I am using an Windows HyperTerminal to view
> the messages.
> Should it not show something at all even if north bridge code
> is broken.
>
> Could anyone give their views on this one..
>
> Regards
> Deepak
>
> Linuxbios mailing list
> [e-mail]
> http://www.clustermatic.org/mailman/listinfo/linuxbios

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[ron minnich]

On Wed, 23 Apr 2003 [e-mail] wrote:
> Is there a recommended way of debugging LinuxBIOS code.

a rom emulator is good. Or, if you have more money, and America Arium ICE.
> I had connected the serial out of my PC to another PC
> and I am using an Windows HyperTerminal to view
> the messages. 

never use hyperterminal. It is a piece of shit. It will lose character 
output all the time. Use minicom on linux.

ron

[Steve Gehlbach]

> never use hyperterminal. It is a piece of shit. It will lose character 
> output all the time. Use minicom on linux.
>
> ron

I agree, hyperterminal is really bad.  I use Tera Term Pro when using 
Windows and it seems okay.

/sg

[Richard Smith]

Steve Gehlbach wrote:
> I agree, hyperterminal is really bad.  I use Tera Term Pro when using 
> Windows and it seems okay.

Tera Term Pro what I use as well.

Speaking of.. has anyone found a good free windows terminal program that 
will display the values in hex as well as ascii?  Realterm is the only 
thing I've found so far.  It's useable but not quite there yet.  A split 
screen ascii/hex setup would be ideal.

Outputing values in binary form is really handy for the ram init code 
where you can't use any of the nice bin2hex debugging macros due to lack 
of registers.

ron minnich  writes:
> On Wed, 23 Apr 2003 [e-mail] wrote:
> > Is there a recommended way of debugging LinuxBIOS code.
>
> a rom emulator is good. Or, if you have more money, and America Arium ICE.

On Athlons and Hammers there is a jtag port that with the
right adapter causes the cpu itself to act like an ICE.  I think
the P4 has something similar but I don't remember.  Except
for getting that initial character of output, and discerning
between a hardware and a software failure.  I don't much see
the need for an ICE.

Eric

[Andrew Ip]

Deepak,
> Is there a recommended way of debugging LinuxBIOS code.
> I burnt my FLASHROM with LinuxBIOS, nothing came 
> up at all. Not a single message came at the serial Output.
> I knew that my North bridge code has issues, but still 
> something should have come. I guess..
> I had connected the serial out of my PC to another PC
> and I am using an Windows HyperTerminal to view
> the messages. 
> Should it not show something at all even if north bridge code
> is broken.
> Could anyone give their views on this one..

POST card would be helpful if you don't have emulator.

-Andrew

[Adam Sulmicki]

On Wed, 23 Apr 2003, Andrew Ip wrote:
> POST card would be helpful if you don't have emulator.

Speaking of which. Does anyone know 3.3V PORT-80 PCI cards instead of your
usual 5V ? (and preferably does not cost $100 either).

[Jeremy Jackson]

The one I have is from JDR Microdevices.  It is probably 5V, but I'm
mentioning it because I had a very hard time finding one this cheap, and I
thought others (without the 3.3V requirement) may find it useful.

http://www.jdr.com/interact/item.asp?itemno=gr-pcode-p

Cheers,

Jeremy
----- Original Message -----
From: "Adam Sulmicki" 
To: "Andrew Ip" 
Cc: ; 
Sent: Wednesday, April 23, 2003 12:56 AM
Subject: Re: Debugging the linuxBIOS code
> On Wed, 23 Apr 2003, Andrew Ip wrote:
> > POST card would be helpful if you don't have emulator.
>
> Speaking of which. Does anyone know 3.3V PORT-80 PCI cards instead of your
> usual 5V ? (and preferably does not cost $100 either).

[e-mail] writes:
> Hi,
> Is there a recommended way of debugging LinuxBIOS code.
>
> I burnt my FLASHROM with LinuxBIOS, nothing came 
> up at all. Not a single message came at the serial Output.
> I knew that my North bridge code has issues, but still 
> something should have come. I guess..
>
> I had connected the serial out of my PC to another PC
> and I am using an Windows HyperTerminal to view
> the messages. 
> Should it not show something at all even if north bridge code
> is broken.
>
> Could anyone give their views on this one..

If there is not a easy solution review the code generated
and see if it is initializing your serial port correctly.

It is the insane way but on known good hardware it tends to work
well.

Oh, and check your baud rate settings..

Eric

[ron minnich]

On 23 Apr 2003, Eric W. Biederman wrote:
> If there is not a easy solution review the code generated
> and see if it is initializing your serial port correctly.

it is worth the exercise to hexdump the romimage and look at the end of 
the image, where the jump is, and where it jumps to, to make sure that 
there is some sanity in the generated code.

ron