Excellent work! This should prove helpful to those new to the project get started. I'd like to elaborate on a few points you have made.
On Tue, 18 May 2004, Jay Miller wrote:
HOW DO I FLASH A ROM? There is also a flash-n-burn utility in the source tree. Perhaps someone on the list can add the specifics of how to get that going on this thread.
Flash-n-burn should work on many newer mainboards, particularly those supported by LinuxBIOS such as your Tyan S2885 with an AMD8111 southbridge. It is currently not capable of flashing in "parallel programming" mode like many older chipsets and flash parts require. It should work with many newer SST parts and with the PM that comes on your S2885. If you require support for another part, let us know and we'll try to add it in.
On Tue, 18 May 2004, Jay Miller wrote:
HOW DO I CHANGE CONFIGURATION OF MY IMAGE?
First take a look at freebios2/targets/<vendor>/<board>/Config.lb. This is the main configuration file for your ROM image. This is where you specify what payload to use, and most of the settings that anyone would care about. Make sure to do a "./buildtarget <vendor>/<board>" whenever you modify this file.
Also, one must run "make" in the <vendor>/<board>/<board> directory. If all goes well, linuxbios.rom should appear and will be the appropriate size (A power of two, like 2^19 for a half meg part). The size can be set in the <vendor>/<board>/Config.lb file.
On Tue, 18 May 2004, Jay Miller wrote:
WHY DON'T I SEE ANYTHING HAPPENING?
In most cases the VGA support just isn't there yet. So go find yourself a null modem cable and hook up your console at 15200-8-N-1, and sit back and watch the fireworks!
We have limited support right now. If you cvs update, you should be able to boot LinuxBIOS, run the VGABIOS with the "testbios" utility, and get X up and running fully accelerated with an nVidia card (GeForce FX) on that S2885 of yours. Here's how you get your VGABIOS (This might have to be done with the factory AWARD BIOS): dd if=/dev/mem of=vgabios.bin skip=1536 count=128
Ollie Lo is making a lot of progress on support for add-in cards. Please check back in upcoming weeks for updates (Ollie is currently in Austin, Texas for a conference).
For those wishing to use their integrated RageXL chips, which are common for many Tyan mainboards and others like the Arima HDAMA, YhLu has recently added support for those as well. Add this to your src/mainboard/<vendor>/<board>/Config.lb file: ## ATI Rage XL framebuffering graphics driver dir /drivers/ati/ragexl
Then add these lines to your targets/<vendor>/<board>/Config.lb file: uses CONFIG_CONSOLE_BTEXT option CONFIG_CONSOLE_BTEXT=1
YhLu has a modified version of FILO available which should be used for this. I think it's here: http://www.clustermatic.org/pipermail/linuxbios/2004-April/007650.html
And lastly, apply YhLu's kernel patch ( http://www.clustermatic.org/pipermail/linuxbios/2004-May/007734.html ) and enable framebuffering in your kernel. This should allow you to see LinuxBIOS, FILO, and your kernel coming up on screen. X should work, too.
I'll get patches and stuff up on personal webspace at a later date. Good luck!
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Hendricks David W.