Hi,
I've been keeping an eye on the LinuxBIOS project for a while now, and I've recently got hold of a couple of old motherboards I'd like to use with LinuxBIOS. I realise there will probably be quite a bit of work involved with getting them going, but I'd just like to check I'm on the right track first!
I've read through all the FAQs, and I have a few questions:
Since none of the boards have on-board networking, I'd really like to use LinuxBIOS to enable them to boot Linux over the network with a standard PCI network card - it seems possible, but there doesn't seem to be anywhere that gives a definite 'yes' to this with standard PC hardware.
Once LinuxBIOS is compiled and ready to go, Is it possible to flash it into the board's existing BIOS? (Without any hardware modifications, ZIF sockets, etc.)
One of the motherboards has a recovery jumper which can be used to reflash the BIOS if there was a problem during a flash operation, do you think this could be used as a backup option in case something goes wrong with LinuxBIOS? (yes, I'm aware of all the dangers etc., but the boards only cost me $1 each so I'm not too worried if I render them unusable, it'll just be a bit of a waste...)
The reason I ask is that the flash chip on one of the boards is soldered on and physically very small. I did get hold of a BIOS upgrade for it though, and the BIOS code itself appears to be supplied as four 64K files - is this large enough?
Sorry if my questions are very basic, I'm new to all this ;-)
Thanks, Adam.
On Thu, 13 Nov 2003 17:12:13 +1000 Adam Nielsen a.nielsen@optushome.com.au wrote:
Since none of the boards have on-board networking, I'd really like to use LinuxBIOS to enable them to boot Linux over the network with a standard PCI network card - it seems possible, but there doesn't seem to be anywhere that gives a definite 'yes' to this with standard PC hardware.
Yes. A variety of NICs can be used with Etherboot as your payload. Get etherboot, go into the src directory, make allelfs, and use the appropriate elf or bzipped elf (zelf) as your LinuxBIOS payload.
On Thu, 13 Nov 2003 17:12:13 +1000 Adam Nielsen a.nielsen@optushome.com.au wrote:
Once LinuxBIOS is compiled and ready to go, Is it possible to flash it into the board's existing BIOS? (Without any hardware modifications, ZIF sockets, etc.)
Yes, but you'll lose your original BIOS. And since nothing is quite foolproof, it would be unwise to risk permanently losing your original BIOS. Unless you have another mainboard with a compatible ROM socket that you can use to recover your old BIOS in case LinuxBIOS fails, I would highly recommend that you get a BIOS Savior or a backup flash part before proceding.
On Thu, 13 Nov 2003 17:12:13 +1000 Adam Nielsen a.nielsen@optushome.com.au wrote:
One of the motherboards has a recovery jumper which can be used to reflash the BIOS if there was a problem during a flash operation, do you think this could be used as a backup option in case something goes wrong with LinuxBIOS? (yes, I'm aware of all the dangers etc., but the boards only cost me $1 each so I'm not too worried if I render them unusable, it'll just be a bit of a waste...)
No, the recovery jumper will program some factory presets into a factory BIOS. It does not act as a recovery BIOS.
On Thu, 13 Nov 2003 17:12:13 +1000 Adam Nielsen a.nielsen@optushome.com.au wrote:
The reason I ask is that the flash chip on one of the boards is soldered on and physically very small.
Oh, then disregard what I said about getting a backup. Unless you switch projects and get a board with a removable ROM, of course :)
On Thu, 13 Nov 2003 17:12:13 +1000 Adam Nielsen a.nielsen@optushome.com.au wrote:
I did get hold of a BIOS upgrade for it though, and the BIOS code itself appears to be supplied as four 64K files - is this large enough?
LinuxBIOS will usually fit in a quarter meg ROM.
Can you provide some more details about this specific board? Knowing the north/south bridge chipset would be most helpful in case Ron has easy answers for you.
My apologies for the spam, looks like I forgot to tell Sylpheed to word wrap before sending a message. I hope this proves to be more readable, otherwise I'll have to RTFM :(
On Thu, 13 Nov 2003 17:12:13 +1000 Adam Nielsen a.nielsen@optushome.com.au wrote:
Since none of the boards have on-board networking, I'd really like to use LinuxBIOS to enable them to boot Linux over the network with a standard PCI network card - it seems possible, but there doesn't seem to be anywhere that gives a definite 'yes' to this with standard PC hardware.
Yes. A variety of NICs can be used with Etherboot as your payload. Get etherboot, go into the src directory, make allelfs, and use the appropriate elf or bzipped elf (zelf) as your LinuxBIOS payload.
On Thu, 13 Nov 2003 17:12:13 +1000 Adam Nielsen a.nielsen@optushome.com.au wrote:
Once LinuxBIOS is compiled and ready to go, Is it possible to flash it into the board's existing BIOS? (Without any hardware modifications, ZIF sockets, etc.)
Yes, but you'll lose your original BIOS. And since nothing is quite foolproof, it would be unwise to risk permanently losing your original BIOS. Unless you have another mainboard with a compatible ROM socket that you can use to recover your old BIOS in case LinuxBIOS fails, I would highly recommend that you get a BIOS Savior or a backup flash part before proceding.
On Thu, 13 Nov 2003 17:12:13 +1000 Adam Nielsen a.nielsen@optushome.com.au wrote:
One of the motherboards has a recovery jumper which can be used to reflash the BIOS if there was a problem during a flash operation, do you think this could be used as a backup option in case something goes wrong with LinuxBIOS? (yes, I'm aware of all the dangers etc., but the boards only cost me $1 each so I'm not too worried if I render them unusable, it'll just be a bit of a waste...)
No, the recovery jumper will program some factory presets into a factory BIOS. It does not act as a recovery BIOS.
On Thu, 13 Nov 2003 17:12:13 +1000 Adam Nielsen a.nielsen@optushome.com.au wrote:
The reason I ask is that the flash chip on one of the boards is soldered on and physically very small.
Oh, then disregard what I said about getting a backup. Unless you switch projects and get a board with a removable ROM, of course :)
On Thu, 13 Nov 2003 17:12:13 +1000 Adam Nielsen a.nielsen@optushome.com.au wrote:
I did get hold of a BIOS upgrade for it though, and the BIOS code itself appears to be supplied as four 64K files - is this large enough?
LinuxBIOS will usually fit in a quarter meg ROM.
Can you provide some more details about this specific board? Knowing the north/south bridge chipset would be most helpful in case Ron has easy answers for you.
Thanks for your reply, it was most helpful!
Yes. A variety of NICs can be used with Etherboot as your payload.
Oh good, I was hoping that would be the case ;-)
You mention booting Windows 2000 on the web site, does this mean it would be possible to boot other OSes such as DOS? It seems that it would be possible, except that a lot of BIOS calls DOS uses haven't been implemented yet - if these were implemented, would that be enough to boot DOS?
One of the motherboards has a recovery jumper
No, the recovery jumper will program some factory presets into a factory BIOS. It does not act as a recovery BIOS.
Are you sure? I'm not talking about the CMOS reset jumper - all the docs I've read about this feature say that can be used to recover from a failed flash attempt, as it contains the bare minimum code needed to boot a floppy (which then courtesy of AUTOEXEC.BAT runs the flash program.) The docs say to wait for a certain series of beeps to indicate the flash was successful (as there is no video.) From this description it seems that if I have a properly configured disk handy, then should the new LinuxBIOS decide not to work, I should be able to recover by reflashing my original BIOS. When I last tried enabling the jumper, as soon as the motherboard powered up it started reading the floppy drive, continously (as I had no disk in there) until it was powered off again.
The only thing I remember reading was something about the BIOS boot block never being overwritten during an upgrade, so if the LinuxBIOS flash procedure does overwrite the boot block I guess this procedure wouldn't work.
And for what it's worth, I've only ever seen this on Intel motherboards (which have soldered flash chips.)
Oh, then disregard what I said about getting a backup. Unless you switch projects and get a board with a removable ROM, of course :)
I actually have two boards, and one of them does have a removable ROM so that's ok ;-) It actually seems to be quite similar to the Gigabyte GA-6BXC, which it seems you used to use (I have one of these boards too, but not for fiddling with ;-))
Can you provide some more details about this specific board? Knowing the north/south bridge chipset would be most helpful in case Ron has easy answers for you.
Yes, I didn't want to bombard you with too much stuff the first time ;-)
Board 1: Unknown brand, P6LX-A+.
According to the manual it has an "Intel 82440LX (PAC)" and an "Intel 82371AB (PIIX4)". It's running a Celeron 300A at the moment. Googling for "P6LX-A+" is where I found most of the info. I haven't seen any references to 440LX, but I'm somewhat hopeful on the PIIX4... This board has a pretty standard socketed BIOS chip (seems the same physically as the GA-6BXC.)
Board 2: Intel, unknown model.
This is definitely an Intel board (looks like an Intel, has an Intel AA model number [AA 666761-205], etc.) but according to Intel it doesn't exist - I think that's because it's sold through Gateway - the BIOS comes up with a "Gateway 2000" logo, and the only info I could find was on Gateway's website. Information on the board itself is a little sketchy but it seems fairly modern for its time - it's only a P133, but it's ATX and uses SDRAM. Googling for "MBDSAC071AAWW" gives a little info about it. I can't find a manual, so I'll just list some of the larger chips I can see... ;-)
Intel PCIset SB82437VX Intel PCIset SB82371SB Intel E28F002 \n BCT80 \n U7050566D (this is the surface mounted flash chip) SMC FDC37C932FR
Hopefully that's enough for you to tell me there's no support for this one yet ;-)
Thanks, Adam.
Greetings,
The unfortunate thing about most BIOS recovery jumpers is that they are simple GPIO inputs, meaning the boot block has to read a regisetr and decide what to do. Naturally, that means that the boot block must not be the part that needs recovery.
They COULD have that jumper actually toggle an address so that a true backup boot block is used, but they don't. To make matters worse, some of those same boards have a chipset with that feature built in, but that is left unconnected and the rescue jumper is wired to GPIO instead. </soapbox>
G'day, sjames
-------------------------steven james, director of research, linux labs ... ........ ..... .... 230 peachtree st nw ste 2701 the original linux labs atlanta.ga.us 30303 -since 1995 http://www.linuxlabs.com office 404.577.7747 fax 404.577.7743 -----------------------------------------------------------------------
On Thu, 13 Nov 2003, Adam Nielsen wrote:
Thanks for your reply, it was most helpful!
Yes. A variety of NICs can be used with Etherboot as your payload.
Oh good, I was hoping that would be the case ;-)
You mention booting Windows 2000 on the web site, does this mean it would be possible to boot other OSes such as DOS? It seems that it would be possible, except that a lot of BIOS calls DOS uses haven't been implemented yet - if these were implemented, would that be enough to boot DOS?
One of the motherboards has a recovery jumper
No, the recovery jumper will program some factory presets into a factory BIOS. It does not act as a recovery BIOS.
Are you sure? I'm not talking about the CMOS reset jumper - all the docs I've read about this feature say that can be used to recover from a failed flash attempt, as it contains the bare minimum code needed to boot a floppy (which then courtesy of AUTOEXEC.BAT runs the flash program.) The docs say to wait for a certain series of beeps to indicate the flash was successful (as there is no video.) From this description it seems that if I have a properly configured disk handy, then should the new LinuxBIOS decide not to work, I should be able to recover by reflashing my original BIOS. When I last tried enabling the jumper, as soon as the motherboard powered up it started reading the floppy drive, continously (as I had no disk in there) until it was powered off again.
The only thing I remember reading was something about the BIOS boot block never being overwritten during an upgrade, so if the LinuxBIOS flash procedure does overwrite the boot block I guess this procedure wouldn't work.
And for what it's worth, I've only ever seen this on Intel motherboards (which have soldered flash chips.)
Oh, then disregard what I said about getting a backup. Unless you switch projects and get a board with a removable ROM, of course :)
I actually have two boards, and one of them does have a removable ROM so that's ok ;-) It actually seems to be quite similar to the Gigabyte GA-6BXC, which it seems you used to use (I have one of these boards too, but not for fiddling with ;-))
Can you provide some more details about this specific board? Knowing the north/south bridge chipset would be most helpful in case Ron has easy answers for you.
Yes, I didn't want to bombard you with too much stuff the first time ;-)
Board 1: Unknown brand, P6LX-A+.
According to the manual it has an "Intel 82440LX (PAC)" and an "Intel 82371AB (PIIX4)". It's running a Celeron 300A at the moment. Googling for "P6LX-A+" is where I found most of the info. I haven't seen any references to 440LX, but I'm somewhat hopeful on the PIIX4... This board has a pretty standard socketed BIOS chip (seems the same physically as the GA-6BXC.)
Board 2: Intel, unknown model.
This is definitely an Intel board (looks like an Intel, has an Intel AA model number [AA 666761-205], etc.) but according to Intel it doesn't exist - I think that's because it's sold through Gateway - the BIOS comes up with a "Gateway 2000" logo, and the only info I could find was on Gateway's website. Information on the board itself is a little sketchy but it seems fairly modern for its time - it's only a P133, but it's ATX and uses SDRAM. Googling for "MBDSAC071AAWW" gives a little info about it. I can't find a manual, so I'll just list some of the larger chips I can see... ;-)
Intel PCIset SB82437VX Intel PCIset SB82371SB Intel E28F002 \n BCT80 \n U7050566D (this is the surface mounted flash chip) SMC FDC37C932FR
Hopefully that's enough for you to tell me there's no support for this one yet ;-)
Thanks, Adam.
Linuxbios mailing list Linuxbios@clustermatic.org http://www.clustermatic.org/mailman/listinfo/linuxbios
Adam Nielsen wrote:
Board 1: Unknown brand, P6LX-A+.
Board 2: Intel, unknown model.
Hook a cdrom up to the board and boot something like Morphix or Knoppix and then do a lspci -v. That will tell us exactly what chipsets are on the board.
Hook a cdrom up to the board and boot something like Morphix or Knoppix and then do a lspci -v. That will tell us exactly what chipsets are on the board.
Ok, well it's easier for me to network boot Slackware (via an etherboot floppy), so this is what the first board says: (P6LX-A+)
00:00.0 Host bridge: Intel Corp. 440LX/EX - 82443LX/EX Host bridge (rev 03) 00:01.0 PCI bridge: Intel Corp. 440LX/EX - 82443LX/EX AGP bridge (rev 03) 00:07.0 ISA bridge: Intel Corp. 82371AB/EB/MB PIIX4 ISA (rev 02) 00:07.1 IDE interface: Intel Corp. 82371AB/EB/MB PIIX4 IDE (rev 01) 00:07.2 USB Controller: Intel Corp. 82371AB/EB/MB PIIX4 USB (rev 01) 00:07.3 Bridge: Intel Corp. 82371AB/EB/MB PIIX4 ACPI (rev 02) 00:0a.0 VGA compatible controller: S3 Inc. 86c764/765 [Trio32/64/64V+] (rev 43) 00:0c.0 Ethernet controller: 3Com Corporation 3c905B 100BaseTX [Cyclone] (rev 24)
The last two items in the list are PCI cards. I've yet to do the P133 board, but I think this one has the most chance of working. I've attached the lspci -v output.
Thanks, Adam.
I don't think we ever did an LX northbridge. It should be similar to the TX I think. You might want to go for it.
ron
Adam Nielsen wrote:
00:00.0 Host bridge: Intel Corp. 440LX/EX - 82443LX/EX Host bridge (rev 03) 00:01.0 PCI bridge: Intel Corp. 440LX/EX - 82443LX/EX AGP bridge (rev 03) 00:07.0 ISA bridge: Intel Corp. 82371AB/EB/MB PIIX4 ISA (rev 02) 00:07.1 IDE interface: Intel Corp. 82371AB/EB/MB PIIX4 IDE (rev 01) 00:07.2 USB Controller: Intel Corp. 82371AB/EB/MB PIIX4 USB (rev 01) 00:07.3 Bridge: Intel Corp. 82371AB/EB/MB PIIX4 ACPI (rev 02)
I don't know the exact differnce between the LX and BX parts but I believe that the LX only supported up to a Pentium II whereas the BX does a III and a celeron. I that the 440BX code should work for you. I know I used a lot of the LX/TX code as reference when I was getting our board to work. You should at least be able to get a serial port up.
Perhaps you can find a LX data sheet somewhere.
What superIO is on the board? Look for a National Semi chip or a winbond or something similar.
I don't know the exact differnce between the LX and BX parts but I believe that the LX only supported up to a Pentium II whereas the BX does a III and a celeron.
Yes, seems to be the main difference (at least from an end user's perspective like mine!) The board only supports up to a 333MHz CPU and it does support a Celeron, but it can't do a 100MHz bus (only 66 officially, but it will go up to 83.)
I that the 440BX code should work for you. I know I used a lot of the LX/TX code as reference when I was getting our board to work. You should at least be able to get a serial port up.
Great, I'll try that then. It's looking more and more like I could just grab the GA-6BXC code and use that! I'm just waiting to get hold of an extra BIOS chip, to extend the life of the motherboard should anything go wrong ;-)
What superIO is on the board? Look for a National Semi chip or a winbond or something similar.
Well, there's a Winbond W83977TF-AW and that seems to be the only Winbond chip. Can't see any Nat. Semi. ones though, so hopefully that's the one you're looking for!
Thanks for your reply, Adam.
Adam Nielsen wrote:
I that the 440BX code should work for you. I know I used a lot of the LX/TX code as reference when I was getting our board to work. You should at least be able to get a serial port up.
Great, I'll try that then. It's looking more and more like I could just grab the GA-6BXC code and use that! I'm just waiting to get hold of an extra BIOS chip, to extend the life of the motherboard should anything go wrong ;-)
Hopefully it will be that simple, however I doubt it.
You might also try to use the Bitworks/IMS project. But since we use a National Semi superIO rather than your Windbond you will have to hack on it to get any serial output.
-
Adam Nielsen -
David Hendricks -
Richard Smith -
ron minnich -
steven james