Offering Gigabyte GA-890FXA-UD5 for porting

[Merlin Büge]

Hey all,

I have a nice Gigabyte mainboard which I don't need/use anymore: 
A Gigabyte GA-890FXA-UD5 (rev. 2.0 or 2.1)

http://www.gigabyte.de/products/product-page.aspx?pid=3519

Since I like libre-friendly computing hardware, I'd find it nice to see
libreboot running on it. I'm not sure, but from what I see, it should
be libreboot compatible? Could someone more knowledged than me confirm
this?

If someone is interested in porting this board to coreboot, and if
there are no big foreseeable obstacles to porting it to lireboot, I'd
be happy donating that board together with a Phenom II 965 and 4G RAM,
preferrable to someone in Germany or within the EU (shipping costs).

Regards,

Merlin

It *appears* to support IOMMU, and the AM3+ higher end procs (8350)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AMD_800_chipset_series#890FX
http://www.overclock.net/t/730776/official-gigabyte-ga-890fxa-ud5-ud7-owners...
The 7xx chipset that coreboot currently supports does not do IOMMU 
(artificial market separations)

What would be really swell is a port to a nice 9xx series motherboard, 
both are quite old but the 8xx is even older.

9xx is the last best x86-64 boards that are able to boot without any 
kind of supervisor processor (ME/PSP) and that have coreboot do the real 
work (intel FSP boards make coreboot just shimboot doing 10% of the work 
- entirely bogus - making most of the boot process a black box.)

On 12/15/2016 07:36 AM, Merlin Büge wrote:
> Hey all,
>
> I have a nice Gigabyte mainboard which I don't need/use anymore:
> A Gigabyte GA-890FXA-UD5 (rev. 2.0 or 2.1)
>
> http://www.gigabyte.de/products/product-page.aspx?pid=3519
>
> Since I like libre-friendly computing hardware, I'd find it nice to see
> libreboot running on it. I'm not sure, but from what I see, it should
> be libreboot compatible? Could someone more knowledged than me confirm
> this?
>
> If someone is interested in porting this board to coreboot, and if
> there are no big foreseeable obstacles to porting it to lireboot, I'd
> be happy donating that board together with a Phenom II 965 and 4G RAM,
> preferrable to someone in Germany or within the EU (shipping costs).
>
> Regards,
>
> Merlin

[Renze Nicolai]

Hello Merlin,

I am interested in porting Coreboot to your GA-890FXA-UD5.
A month ago I succesfully ported coreboot to my MS-7721 (FM2-A75MA-E35) 
motherboard and having a go at porting another AMD board to coreboot
would be a good opportunity for me to learn more about coreboot.

Since I can not guarantee that I will succeed. Therefore I propose that
in case of failure the provided hardware will be returned to you so
that you can find someone else to give it a go.

If you want me to work on porting coreboot to your board we should work
out the details privately. Please contact me directly
([e-mail]).

Can someone more experienced please confirm that coreboot has support
for the AMD 890FX northbridge, the AMD SB850 southbridge and the ITE
IT8720 superio chip?

(If support for the superio chip is not yet available I could try
adding support for the chip to coreboot but this is not something I
have done before.)

(I live in the Enschede, the Netherlands so shipping charges should not
be a problem)

Greetings,
Renze Nicolai

On do, 2016-12-15 at 20:34 -0500, [e-mail] wrote:
> It *appears* to support IOMMU, and the AM3+ higher end procs (8350)
> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AMD_800_chipset_series#890FX
> http://www.overclock.net/t/730776/official-gigabyte-ga-890fxa-ud5-ud7
> -owners-thread-club/4040
> The 7xx chipset that coreboot currently supports does not do IOMMU 
> (artificial market separations)
>
> What would be really swell is a port to a nice 9xx series
> motherboard, 
> both are quite old but the 8xx is even older.
>
> 9xx is the last best x86-64 boards that are able to boot without any 
> kind of supervisor processor (ME/PSP) and that have coreboot do the
> real 
> work (intel FSP boards make coreboot just shimboot doing 10% of the
> work
> entirely bogus - making most of the boot process a black box.)
>
> On 12/15/2016 07:36 AM, Merlin Büge wrote:
> > Hey all,
> >
> > I have a nice Gigabyte mainboard which I don't need/use anymore:
> > A Gigabyte GA-890FXA-UD5 (rev. 2.0 or 2.1)
> >
> > http://www.gigabyte.de/products/product-page.aspx?pid=3519
> >
> > Since I like libre-friendly computing hardware, I'd find it nice to
> > see
> > libreboot running on it. I'm not sure, but from what I see, it
> > should
> > be libreboot compatible? Could someone more knowledged than me
> > confirm
> > this?
> >
> > If someone is interested in porting this board to coreboot, and if
> > there are no big foreseeable obstacles to porting it to lireboot,
> > I'd
> > be happy donating that board together with a Phenom II 965 and 4G
> > RAM,
> > preferrable to someone in Germany or within the EU (shipping
> > costs).
> >
> > Regards,
> >
> > Merlin

[Merlin Büge]

Hi,

Taiidan and Renze, thank you for your responses.

On Fri, 16 Dec 2016 03:46:07 +0100
Renze Nicolai  wrote:
> I am interested in porting Coreboot to your GA-890FXA-UD5.
> A month ago I succesfully ported coreboot to my MS-7721
> (FM2-A75MA-E35) motherboard and having a go at porting another AMD
> board to coreboot would be a good opportunity for me to learn more
> about coreboot.

That sounds good. I'd love to try it myself, but at the moment I don't
feel like I have enough time for it. I'm also quite new to coreboot and
have plenty to learn about it, so I guess I should start somewhere else.
> Since I can not guarantee that I will succeed. Therefore I propose
> that in case of failure the provided hardware will be returned to you
> so that you can find someone else to give it a go.
>
> If you want me to work on porting coreboot to your board we should
> work out the details privately. Please contact me directly
> ([e-mail]).

Sure! I'll write you an email today.
> Can someone more experienced please confirm that coreboot has support
> for the AMD 890FX northbridge, the AMD SB850 southbridge and the ITE
> IT8720 superio chip?

I'm not sure, but I found this:
https://www.coreboot.org/Board:amd/south_station
... which according to
https://www.coreboot.org/Supported_Motherboards/old
has a SB850 and seems to be supported by coreboot.

I could not find any further info on that board though...

By the way, the Gigabyte mainboard has a "Dual BIOS" setup:
https://www.coreboot.org/Gigabyte_Dual_bios

I guess this could impose obstacles.

It seems that there has been done work about it already:
https://www.mail-archive.com/[e-mail]/msg23613.html
https://www.mail-archive.com/[e-mail]/msg05929.html

(Taiidan:)
> > What would be really swell is a port to a nice 9xx series
> > motherboard, 
> > both are quite old but the 8xx is even older.

Heh, when I read specs on those, they both still sound absolutely
high-end to me :P  I find it strenuous to keep up with current tech
trends...

Thanks,

Merlin

[Renze Nicolai]

Hello Merlin,

I just received a message from Idwer Vollering that there is no raminit
 code available yet. Since I am not at the level where I can write
raminit code without proper documentation (which isn't available as
well) I won't be able to port coreboot to your board. Sorry!

Hopefully you will find someone else who can!

Greetings,
Renze

On vr, 2016-12-16 at 14:09 +0100, Merlin Büge wrote:
> Hi,
>
> Taiidan and Renze, thank you for your responses.
>
> On Fri, 16 Dec 2016 03:46:07 +0100
> Renze Nicolai  wrote:
> > I am interested in porting Coreboot to your GA-890FXA-UD5.
> > A month ago I succesfully ported coreboot to my MS-7721
> > (FM2-A75MA-E35) motherboard and having a go at porting another AMD
> > board to coreboot would be a good opportunity for me to learn more
> > about coreboot.
>
> That sounds good. I'd love to try it myself, but at the moment I
> don't
> feel like I have enough time for it. I'm also quite new to coreboot
> and
> have plenty to learn about it, so I guess I should start somewhere
> else.
> > Since I can not guarantee that I will succeed. Therefore I propose
> > that in case of failure the provided hardware will be returned to
> > you
> > so that you can find someone else to give it a go.
> >
> > If you want me to work on porting coreboot to your board we should
> > work out the details privately. Please contact me directly
> > ([e-mail]).
>
> Sure! I'll write you an email today.
> > Can someone more experienced please confirm that coreboot has
> > support
> > for the AMD 890FX northbridge, the AMD SB850 southbridge and the
> > ITE
> > IT8720 superio chip?
>
> I'm not sure, but I found this:
> https://www.coreboot.org/Board:amd/south_station
> ... which according to
> https://www.coreboot.org/Supported_Motherboards/old
> has a SB850 and seems to be supported by coreboot.
>
> I could not find any further info on that board though...
>
> By the way, the Gigabyte mainboard has a "Dual BIOS" setup:
> https://www.coreboot.org/Gigabyte_Dual_bios
>
> I guess this could impose obstacles.
>
> It seems that there has been done work about it already:
> https://www.mail-archive.com/[e-mail]/msg23613.html
> https://www.mail-archive.com/[e-mail]/msg05929.html
>
> (Taiidan:)
> > > What would be really swell is a port to a nice 9xx series
> > > motherboard, 
> > > both are quite old but the 8xx is even older.
>
> Heh, when I read specs on those, they both still sound absolutely
> high-end to me :P  I find it strenuous to keep up with current tech
> trends...
>
> Thanks,
>
> Merlin
>
> -- 
> Merlin Büge

[Merlin Büge]

Hi Renze,
> I just received a message from Idwer Vollering that there is no
> raminit code available yet. Since I am not at the level where I can
> write raminit code without proper documentation (which isn't
> available as well) I won't be able to port coreboot to your board.
> Sorry!

no problem ;)

Thanks for pointing this out Idwer!

I'm not sure if it's worth the hassle then, writing raminit without
documentation sounds hard.

If anybody wants to give it a try nevertheless, feel free to contact me.

Regards,

Merlin

On Fri, 16 Dec 2016 17:31:35 +0100
Renze Nicolai  wrote:
> Hello Merlin,
>
> I just received a message from Idwer Vollering that there is no
> raminit code available yet. Since I am not at the level where I can
> write raminit code without proper documentation (which isn't
> available as well) I won't be able to port coreboot to your board.
> Sorry!
>
> Hopefully you will find someone else who can!
>
> Greetings,
> Renze
>
> On vr, 2016-12-16 at 14:09 +0100, Merlin Büge wrote:
> > Hi,
> >
> > Taiidan and Renze, thank you for your responses.
> >
> > On Fri, 16 Dec 2016 03:46:07 +0100
> > Renze Nicolai  wrote:
> > > I am interested in porting Coreboot to your GA-890FXA-UD5.
> > > A month ago I succesfully ported coreboot to my MS-7721
> > > (FM2-A75MA-E35) motherboard and having a go at porting another AMD
> > > board to coreboot would be a good opportunity for me to learn more
> > > about coreboot.
> >
> > That sounds good. I'd love to try it myself, but at the moment I
> > don't
> > feel like I have enough time for it. I'm also quite new to coreboot
> > and
> > have plenty to learn about it, so I guess I should start somewhere
> > else.
> > > Since I can not guarantee that I will succeed. Therefore I propose
> > > that in case of failure the provided hardware will be returned to
> > > you
> > > so that you can find someone else to give it a go.
> > >
> > > If you want me to work on porting coreboot to your board we should
> > > work out the details privately. Please contact me directly
> > > ([e-mail]).
> >
> > Sure! I'll write you an email today.
> > > Can someone more experienced please confirm that coreboot has
> > > support
> > > for the AMD 890FX northbridge, the AMD SB850 southbridge and the
> > > ITE
> > > IT8720 superio chip?
> >
> > I'm not sure, but I found this:
> > https://www.coreboot.org/Board:amd/south_station
> > ... which according to
> > https://www.coreboot.org/Supported_Motherboards/old
> > has a SB850 and seems to be supported by coreboot.
> >
> > I could not find any further info on that board though...
> >
> > By the way, the Gigabyte mainboard has a "Dual BIOS" setup:
> > https://www.coreboot.org/Gigabyte_Dual_bios
> >
> > I guess this could impose obstacles.
> >
> > It seems that there has been done work about it already:
> > https://www.mail-archive.com/[e-mail]/msg23613.html
> > https://www.mail-archive.com/[e-mail]/msg05929.html
> >
> > (Taiidan:)
> > > > What would be really swell is a port to a nice 9xx series
> > > > motherboard, 
> > > > both are quite old but the 8xx is even older.
> >
> > Heh, when I read specs on those, they both still sound absolutely
> > high-end to me :P  I find it strenuous to keep up with current tech
> > trends...
> >
> > Thanks,
> >
> > Merlin
> >
> > -- 
> > Merlin Büge

[Leah Rowe]

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
Hash: SHA256

Hi Merlin,

On 15/12/16 12:36, Merlin Büge wrote:
> Hey all,
>
> I have a nice Gigabyte mainboard which I don't need/use anymore: A
> Gigabyte GA-890FXA-UD5 (rev. 2.0 or 2.1)
>
> http://www.gigabyte.de/products/product-page.aspx?pid=3519
>
> Since I like libre-friendly computing hardware, I'd find it nice to
> see libreboot running on it. I'm not sure, but from what I see, it
> should be libreboot compatible? Could someone more knowledged than
> me confirm this?
>
> If someone is interested in porting this board to coreboot, and if 
> there are no big foreseeable obstacles to porting it to lireboot,
> I'd be happy donating that board together with a Phenom II 965 and
> 4G RAM, preferrable to someone in Germany or within the EU
> (shipping costs).

avph in #coreboot might be able to help you. If you do get it working
with libreboot/no blobs, let us know and we'll add it.

- -- 
Leah Rowe

Libreboot developer

Use free software. Free as in freedom.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_software

Use a free operating system, GNU+Linux.
https://libreboot.org/docs/distros/
Or BSD:
https://libreboot.org/docs/bsd/

Use a free BIOS.
https://libreboot.org/

Support computer user freedom.
https://peers.community/

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