Newbie with epia M-II

[Ignacio Verona]

hi! This is my first post. I'm trying to develop my own Car PC and using 
LinuxBios I hope to get faster boot times. I'm using a Via EPIA M-II 
10000. What are the first steps I should take? The epia bios is socketed 
on 32-lead PLCC format. What is the biggest rom size I could get? It is 
possible to use DOC on this motherboard (may be, I could fit a usable 
linux system on... less than 64mb).

I've reading the list archive but I'm still a little lost. All help will 
be aprecciated. Thanks!!

[Greg Watson]

Not sure what the biggest PLCC is, but it's probably not much over 1MB. 
We use a 64MB IDE FLASH on some of our EPIA's which is easily big 
enough for a kernel and RAM disk. The nice thing about the IDE FLASH is 
that it can easily be replaced by a disk if you want.

It seems the main difference between the EPIA and the EPIA-M (and 
possibly the EPIA-10000) is the type of RAM used (SDRAM/DDR). It's 
going to take some work to add DDR support to current EPIA image.

Greg

On 12/04/2004, at 5:57 AM, Ignacio Verona wrote:
> hi! This is my first post. I'm trying to develop my own Car PC and 
> using LinuxBios I hope to get faster boot times. I'm using a Via EPIA 
> M-II 10000. What are the first steps I should take? The epia bios is 
> socketed on 32-lead PLCC format. What is the biggest rom size I could 
> get? It is possible to use DOC on this motherboard (may be, I could 
> fit a usable linux system on... less than 64mb).
>
> I've reading the list archive but I'm still a little lost. All help 
> will be aprecciated. Thanks!!
>
> Linuxbios mailing list
> [e-mail]
> http://www.clustermatic.org/mailman/listinfo/linuxbios

[Antony Stone]

On Monday 12 April 2004 12:57 pm, Ignacio Verona wrote:
> hi! This is my first post. I'm trying to develop my own Car PC and using
> LinuxBios I hope to get faster boot times. I'm using a Via EPIA M-II
> 10000. What are the first steps I should take?

Search the archives to see if anyone else has built LinuxBIOS for that board; 
if not, check your chipset with lspci and see if someone has got that chipset 
working on a different board.
> The epia bios is socketed on 32-lead PLCC format. What is the biggest rom
> size I could get? It is possible to use DOC on this motherboard (may be, I
> could fit a usable linux system on... less than 64mb).

64Mbytes for a usable Linux system is not a challenge.

Rather than thinking of DoC, you'd be better of using Compact Flash.   If your 
motherboard doesn't have a CF socket directly, you can use a simple (and 
cheap) CF-IDE adapter and put the CF where the HDD normally connects.

Don't think that you have to put the entire Linux kernel into the chip in the 
BIOS socket - you don't.   You just need a bootloader (that's essentially 
what LinuxBIOS is) in the BIOS chip, and that loads your kernel from wherever 
you want - CF is a good choice for this type of application, unless you want 
to store Gbytes of MP3s and have a hard drive anyway?   Depends on what your 
car PC application / purpose is.

Regards,

Antony.

[Larry Matter]

> On Monday 12 April 2004 12:57 pm, Ignacio Verona wrote:
> > hi! This is my first post. I'm trying to develop my own Car PC and using
> > LinuxBios I hope to get faster boot times. I'm using a Via EPIA M-II
> > 10000. What are the first steps I should take?
>
> Search the archives to see if anyone else has built LinuxBIOS for that
> board;
> if not, check your chipset with lspci and see if someone has got that
> chipset
> working on a different board.

I also have an EPIA MII, though it is the fanless 6000.  I have
successfully installed LinuxBIOS and it is loading etherboot (verified by
looking at the serial output and my dhcp server log).  I'm currently stuck
getting an etherboot image that works, but I'm sure I'll get past that
soon.

I basically followed the epia howto but used via/epia-m as the mainboard
in my config file.  I also used the exact version of etherboot as the
howto even though there are much newer versions.
> > The epia bios is socketed on 32-lead PLCC format. What is the biggest
> > rom
> > size I could get? It is possible to use DOC on this motherboard (may be,
> > I
> > could fit a usable linux system on... less than 64mb).
>
> 64Mbytes for a usable Linux system is not a challenge.
>
> Rather than thinking of DoC, you'd be better of using Compact Flash.   If
> your
> motherboard doesn't have a CF socket directly, you can use a simple (and
> cheap) CF-IDE adapter and put the CF where the HDD normally connects.

The MII does come with an onboard CF slot (and pcmcia slot) but I believe
it is connected via cardbus; it does not present itself as an ide device -
standard bios cannot boot from it.  You might be able to get that adapter
working using yenta socket driver, etc., but it is probably a lot easier
to get an CF-IDE adapter working first.  You probably want to use FILO
instead of etherboot too, but I'm not sure about that.  I'm still very
much a LinuxBIOS newbie too.

Good Luck!  And make sure you get a Bios Savior!

Larry

[Ignacio Verona]

> I basically followed the epia howto but used via/epia-m as the mainboard
> in my config file.  I also used the exact version of etherboot as the
> howto even though there are much newer versions.

Where is the howto? I've googled but haven't found anything on
"linuxbios epia howto".

Thanks!!

[Ignacio Verona]

I've another question. LinuxBios "loads" a normal kernel? So I'll be
able to use mpeg accel. on my MB if it's supported? My main goal is to
get as fast as possible boot times.

Thanks!