Hi, I'm new to the Coreboot project. I am an experienced electronics technician, so desoldering and burning flash chips is second nature to me, but I'm not a programmer so please forgive me if this seems like a silly question.
I've been poking around the Coreboot home pages for the last few days. I've downloaded all the required packages to my Gentoo box and had a good look at what is there. I've read through some of the various documents on the web site about how to build Coreboot and I think I now have a basic understanding of how it all works.
My target system is a Clevo laptop with an Intel 82855PM/GM northbridge and an 82801DB(ICH-4m) south bridge. Both of these chips are listed on the supported chipsets page (albeit I understand that the 82855PM/GM is still a work in progress).
My question is, do I have to set any build flags or edit any configuration files before building Coreboot, to support these chips? Or does Coreboot support every device on the supported chipsets page "out of the box" so to speak?
I know that I have to edit a configuration file to specify the payload I wish to use, but I cannot find anything that tells me wether or not I have to configure Coreboot for the specific chipset on the target mainboard.
Thanks for your time and keep up the good work. It's a very interesting project and I'm keen to help out even if only by testing on different platforms.
Regards, Ben
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Hi Ben,
On 01.06.2009 01:27, audiossis@netspace.net.au wrote:
I'm new to the Coreboot project.
Welcome!
I am an experienced electronics technician, so desoldering and burning flash chips is second nature to me, but I'm not a programmer so please forgive me if this seems like a silly question.
There are no silly questions.
My target system is a Clevo laptop with an Intel 82855PM/GM northbridge and an 82801DB(ICH-4m) south bridge. Both of these chips are listed on the supported chipsets page (albeit I understand that the 82855PM/GM is still a work in progress).
There's one problem with your target system: It's a laptop. Laptops have embedded controllers and those are _very_ hairy to deal with because they are usually undocumented and talking with them in unexpected ways can even turn off the machine or wreak other havoc.
My question is, do I have to set any build flags or edit any configuration files before building Coreboot, to support these chips? Or does Coreboot support every device on the supported chipsets page "out of the box" so to speak?
Due to size constraints in today's flash chips, adding support for multiple chipsets (or even multiple mainboards with the same chipset) is almost infeasible. That's why coreboot has "targets" which are configurations specifying the exact chipset and each oddball mainboard setting. A target not exactly matching your mainboard is very unlikely to work.
I know that I have to edit a configuration file to specify the payload I wish to use, but I cannot find anything that tells me wether or not I have to configure Coreboot for the specific chipset on the target mainboard.
There are a few build tutorials in our wiki for various boards and I hope some of them can give you an insight into how building a particular target works.
I'm keen to help out even if only by testing on different platforms.
We're a team consisting of hardware specialists and software specialists and a few of us specialize in both. I hope you feel welcome and stick around. We have plenty of exciting projects which can use help from electronics specialists like you.
Regards, Carl-Daniel
Hi Ben,
audiossis@netspace.net.au wrote:
My target system is a Clevo laptop
What Carl-Daniel wrote about embedded controllers applies. But since you can recover, it might still be interesting to give it a go.
(albeit I understand that the 82855PM/GM is still a work in progress)
I have met at least one person who has production 855 code, I will get in touch with them if you find that current code is lacking.
I know that I have to edit a configuration file to specify the payload I wish to use,
Yes.
but I cannot find anything that tells me wether or not I have to configure Coreboot for the specific chipset on the target mainboard.
Carl-Daniel mentioned targets. This is the starting point when building coreboot.
In the v2 tree, there is the targets/ directory. In there you find all targets, grouped by vendor. There is no target for your exact system, so find one that is as close as possible. One target which uses 855 is digitallogic/adl855pc. To build that, you do:
cd targets ./buildtarget digitallogic/adl855pc cd digitallogic/adl855pc/adl855pc make
(you can also run make -C digitallogic/adl855pc/adl855pc and skip cd)
After those commands, you should have a coreboot.rom file.
The payload is specified in digitallogic/adl855pc/Config.lb, which is parsed by buildtarget and used to create Makefiles underneath the final leaf directory. If you change Config.lb, you have to re-run buildtarget.
Note that buildtarget doesn't check for the payload, so you'll get Makefiles which fail to build.
Then try booting coreboot.rom in your system. Chances are zero that it will work, but if the laptop is a little similar to the digitallogic, you may get serial output. Most likely you'll have to change the superio though, in src/mainboard/digitallogic/adl855pc/Config.lb to the superio which is used in the laptop, before you get anything from the serial port.
//Peter
On Monday 01 June 2009 11:23:09 Peter Stuge wrote:
Hi Ben,
audiossis@netspace.net.au wrote:
My target system is a Clevo laptop
What Carl-Daniel wrote about embedded controllers applies. But since you can recover, it might still be interesting to give it a go.
(albeit I understand that the 82855PM/GM is still a work in progress)
I have met at least one person who has production 855 code, I will get in touch with them if you find that current code is lacking.
I know that I have to edit a configuration file to specify the payload I wish to use,
Yes.
but I cannot find anything that tells me wether or not I have to configure Coreboot for the specific chipset on the target mainboard.
Carl-Daniel mentioned targets. This is the starting point when building coreboot.
In the v2 tree, there is the targets/ directory. In there you find all targets, grouped by vendor. There is no target for your exact system, so find one that is as close as possible. One target which uses 855 is digitallogic/adl855pc. To build that, you do:
cd targets ./buildtarget digitallogic/adl855pc cd digitallogic/adl855pc/adl855pc make
(you can also run make -C digitallogic/adl855pc/adl855pc and skip cd)
After those commands, you should have a coreboot.rom file.
The payload is specified in digitallogic/adl855pc/Config.lb, which is parsed by buildtarget and used to create Makefiles underneath the final leaf directory. If you change Config.lb, you have to re-run buildtarget.
Note that buildtarget doesn't check for the payload, so you'll get Makefiles which fail to build.
Then try booting coreboot.rom in your system. Chances are zero that it will work, but if the laptop is a little similar to the digitallogic, you may get serial output. Most likely you'll have to change the superio though, in src/mainboard/digitallogic/adl855pc/Config.lb to the superio which is used in the laptop, before you get anything from the serial port.
//Peter
Thanks guys, I've had another look at the source code as was suggested and read through the developer documents on the web site again. I think I have a better grasp of the situation now.
I found what I think are the CPU and chipset config settings in the and over the next week I'll gear up to have a go at a desktop mainboard (simpler to repair if something goes wrong). If I get it working I'll post my config files. Then I'll consider trying on the laptop.
I've no doubt I'll need to ask you some more questions very soon..... I'll try not to be too annoying though....
Thanks again for your time!
Ben
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audiossis＠netspace.net.au -
Ben
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Carl-Daniel Hailfinger -
Peter Stuge