Amptron 3787CLM - will donate hardware for support

Note: I'd normally use the linuxbios.org web page submission form, but
      the form is not working, and there is no contact info that
      looked readily available.  The list isn't a bad place to find
      people willing to work on new hardware, so here goes...

I found some cheap motherboards from Amptron that make an ideal
terminal server or low-power workstation.  It's the PIII-3787CLM+.
You might recognize the motherboard if you bought one of those
$199 Fry's/Walmart PCs recently.  The motherboard + 733MHz Via C3
costs about $70 retail.  It comes with just about everything you
need for a desktop: AGP Video, AC97 sound, 10/100 Ethernet, and
USB.  All I need to do is add a floppy drive, some RAM, and then boot.

Motherboard specs:
  http://www.amptron.com/html/MotherboardP3_M787CL+_frame.html

I plan to use the motherboard on desktops (LTSP and/or diskless
NFS-based RedHat 8.0) and some servers (add more RAM and maybe a
a uDMA drive or two).

I'd really like to just boot Linux off the BIOS to make boot times
faster and have one less moving part to fail.  If the BIOS supported
USB boot drives, I'd just get a keychain drive and be done.  The
built-in Ethernet doesn't PXEboot, so LinuxBIOS looks like the only way
to get rid of the floppy.

I'd be glad to donate a montherboard ($70 retail value each) to anyone
who can get one of them to boot to become either a LTSP client or a
diskless Linux workstation (initrd root + NFS /usr) without the use of
a floppy disk.  I'll throw in a $20 256MB DIMM for fun.

The label on the BIOS chip reads: "686 AMIBIOS (C)1999 BS46".
The Amptron web page states it's 2MB "Flash".  I don't know how
this compares to DiskOnChip, but it's my preference not to have
to buy/install DOC if I can avoid it.  Reading the Sis630 LinuxBIOS
HOWTO, I don't feel confident in my ability to get it to work on
new unsupported hardware.

If you think you can get it to work, drop me a line.  If you
can make a public HOWTO document for me and others to install
LinuxBIOS on the board (without buying DiskOnChip), you can keep
your parts.  If it's not possible, let me know.

I really like the hardware becasue it's an excellent, low-power (25W),
cheap desktop platform.  It could also be a part of dense low-bandwidth
low-power server clusters.

Eric Ziegast
San Diego, CA
[e-mail]
619-994-UNIX (cell)

Some info off a system on which I installed RedHat 8.0...

# lspci
00:00.0 Host bridge: Silicon Integrated Systems [SiS] 630 Host (rev 21)
00:00.1 IDE interface: Silicon Integrated Systems [SiS] 5513 [IDE] (rev d0)
00:01.0 ISA bridge: Silicon Integrated Systems [SiS] 85C503/5513
00:01.1 Ethernet controller: Silicon Integrated Systems [SiS] SiS900 10/100 Ethernet (rev 83)
00:01.2 USB Controller: Silicon Integrated Systems [SiS] 7001 (rev 07)
00:01.3 USB Controller: Silicon Integrated Systems [SiS] 7001 (rev 07)
00:02.0 PCI bridge: Silicon Integrated Systems [SiS] 5591/5592 AGP
01:00.0 VGA compatible controller: Silicon Integrated Systems [SiS] SiS630 GUI Accelerator+3D (rev 21)

# dmesg
Linux version 2.4.18-14 ([e-mail]) (gcc version 3.2 20020903 (Red Hat Linux 8.0 3.2-7)) #1 Wed Sep 4 11:57:57 EDT 2002
BIOS-provided physical RAM map:
 BIOS-e820: 0000000000000000 - 000000000009fc00 (usable)
 BIOS-e820: 000000000009fc00 - 00000000000a0000 (reserved)
 BIOS-e820: 00000000000f0000 - 0000000000100000 (reserved)
 BIOS-e820: 0000000000100000 - 000000000fdf0000 (usable)
 BIOS-e820: 000000000fdf0000 - 000000000fdf8000 (ACPI data)
 BIOS-e820: 000000000fdf8000 - 000000000fe00000 (ACPI NVS)
 BIOS-e820: 00000000ffef0000 - 00000000fff00000 (reserved)
 BIOS-e820: 00000000ffff0000 - 0000000100000000 (reserved)
253MB LOWMEM available.
On node 0 totalpages: 65008
zone(0): 4096 pages.
zone(1): 60912 pages.
zone(2): 0 pages.
Kernel command line: ro root=LABEL=/
Initializing CPU#0
Detected 735.006 MHz processor.
Speakup v-1.00 CVS: Tue Jun 11 14:22:53 EDT 2002 : initialized
Console: colour VGA+ 80x25
Calibrating delay loop... 1468.00 BogoMIPS
Memory: 251216k/260032k available (1193k kernel code, 6400k reserved, 984k data, 200k init, 0k highmem)
Checking if this processor honours the WP bit even in supervisor mode... Ok.
Dentry cache hash table entries: 32768 (order: 6, 262144 bytes)
Inode cache hash table entries: 16384 (order: 5, 131072 bytes)
Mount cache hash table entries: 4096 (order: 3, 32768 bytes)
ramfs: mounted with options: <defaults>
ramfs: max_pages=31655 max_file_pages=0 max_inodes=0 max_dentries=31655
Buffer cache hash table entries: 16384 (order: 4, 65536 bytes)
Page-cache hash table entries: 65536 (order: 6, 262144 bytes)
CPU: Before vendor init, caps: 00803035 80803035 00000000, vendor = 5
CPU: L1 I Cache: 64K (32 bytes/line), D cache 64K (32 bytes/line)
CPU: L2 Cache: 64K (32 bytes/line)
CPU: After vendor init, caps: 00803135 80803035 00000000 00000000
CPU:     After generic, caps: 00803135 80803035 00000000 00000000
CPU:             Common caps: 00803135 80803035 00000000 00000000
CPU: Centaur VIA Samuel 2 stepping 03
Checking 'hlt' instruction... OK.
POSIX conformance testing by UNIFIX
mtrr: v1.40 (20010327) Richard Gooch ([e-mail])
mtrr: detected mtrr type: Intel
PCI: PCI BIOS revision 2.10 entry at 0xfd9f8, last bus=1
PCI: Using configuration type 1
PCI: Probing PCI hardware
PCI: Using IRQ router SIS [1039/0008] at 00:01.0
isapnp: Scanning for PnP cards...
isapnp: No Plug & Play device found
speakup:  initialized device: /dev/synth, node (MAJOR 10, MINOR 25)
Linux NET4.0 for Linux 2.4
Based upon Swansea University Computer Society NET3.039
Initializing RT netlink socket
apm: BIOS version 1.2 Flags 0x03 (Driver version 1.16)
Starting kswapd
VFS: Diskquotas version dquot_6.5.0 initialized
pty: 512 Unix98 ptys configured
Serial driver version 5.05c (2001-07-08) with MANY_PORTS MULTIPORT SHARE_IRQ SERIAL_PCI ISAPNP enabled
ttyS0 at 0x03f8 (irq = 4) is a 16550A
Real Time Clock Driver v1.10e
block: 480 slots per queue, batch=120
Uniform Multi-Platform E-IDE driver Revision: 6.31
ide: Assuming 33MHz system bus speed for PIO modes; override with idebus=xx
SIS5513: IDE controller on PCI bus 00 dev 01
PCI: No IRQ known for interrupt pin A of device 00:00.1. Please try using pci=biosirq.
SIS5513: chipset revision 208
SIS5513: not 100% native mode: will probe irqs later
SiS630    ATA 66 controller
    ide0: BM-DMA at 0xffa0-0xffa7, BIOS settings: hda:DMA, hdb:DMA
    ide1: BM-DMA at 0xffa8-0xffaf, BIOS settings: hdc:DMA, hdd:DMA
hda: WDC WD200BB-60DGA0, ATA DISK drive
ide0 at 0x1f0-0x1f7,0x3f6 on irq 14
hda: 39102336 sectors (20020 MB) w/2048KiB Cache, CHS=2434/255/63, UDMA(66)
ide-floppy driver 0.99.newide
Partition check:
 hda: hda1 hda2 hda3
floppy0: no floppy controllers found
NET4: Frame Diverter 0.46
RAMDISK driver initialized: 16 RAM disks of 4096K size 1024 blocksize
ide-floppy driver 0.99.newide
md: md driver 0.90.0 MAX_MD_DEVS=256, MD_SB_DISKS=27
md: Autodetecting RAID arrays.
md: autorun ...
md: ... autorun DONE.
NET4: Linux TCP/IP 1.0 for NET4.0
IP Protocols: ICMP, UDP, TCP, IGMP
IP: routing cache hash table of 2048 buckets, 16Kbytes
TCP: Hash tables configured (established 16384 bind 32768)
Linux IP multicast router 0.06 plus PIM-SM
NET4: Unix domain sockets 1.0/SMP for Linux NET4.0.
RAMDISK: Compressed image found at block 0
Freeing initrd memory: 127k freed
VFS: Mounted root (ext2 filesystem).
Journalled Block Device driver loaded
kjournald starting.  Commit interval 5 seconds
EXT3-fs: mounted filesystem with ordered data mode.
Freeing unused kernel memory: 200k freed
usb.c: registered new driver usbdevfs
usb.c: registered new driver hub
PCI: Found IRQ 10 for device 00:01.3
PCI: Sharing IRQ 10 with 00:01.2
usb-ohci.c: USB OHCI at membase 0xd0844000, IRQ 10
usb-ohci.c: usb-00:01.3, Silicon Integrated Systems [SiS] 7001 (#2)
usb.c: new USB bus registered, assigned bus number 1
hub.c: USB hub found
hub.c: 2 ports detected
PCI: Found IRQ 10 for device 00:01.2
PCI: Sharing IRQ 10 with 00:01.3
usb-ohci.c: USB OHCI at membase 0xd0846000, IRQ 10
usb-ohci.c: usb-00:01.2, Silicon Integrated Systems [SiS] 7001
usb.c: new USB bus registered, assigned bus number 2
hub.c: USB hub found
hub.c: 3 ports detected
usb.c: registered new driver hiddev
usb.c: registered new driver hid
hid-core.c: v1.8.1 Andreas Gal, Vojtech Pavlik 
hid-core.c: USB HID support drivers
mice: PS/2 mouse device common for all mice
EXT3 FS 2.4-0.9.18, 14 May 2002 on ide0(3,2), internal journal
Adding Swap: 522104k swap-space (priority -1)
kjournald starting.  Commit interval 5 seconds
EXT3 FS 2.4-0.9.18, 14 May 2002 on ide0(3,1), internal journal
EXT3-fs: mounted filesystem with ordered data mode.
ohci1394: pci_module_init failed
ip_tables: (C) 2000-2002 Netfilter core team
sis900.c: v1.08.04 4/25/2002
PCI: Found IRQ 11 for device 00:01.1
divert: allocating divert_blk for eth0
eth0: SiS 900 Internal MII PHY transceiver found at address 1.
eth0: Using transceiver found at address 1 as default
eth0: SiS 900 PCI Fast Ethernet at 0xde00, IRQ 11, 00:07:95:35:88:b1.
eth0: Media Link On 100mbps half-duplex

[Ronald G. Minnich]

On Wed, 26 Feb 2003, Eric Ziegast wrote:
> Note: I'd normally use the linuxbios.org web page submission form, but
>       the form is not working, and there is no contact info that
>       looked readily available.  The list isn't a bad place to find
>       people willing to work on new hardware, so here goes...

sorry about the form, we're in transition and that thing never got used by 
anybody so we took it off.
> The label on the BIOS chip reads: "686 AMIBIOS (C)1999 BS46".
> The Amptron web page states it's 2MB "Flash".  I don't know how

probably 2 Mbit, not 2 Mbyte.

Is it a 32-pin DIP or a little square thing? can you peel the label off 
and see what the part # is?

Would you consider IDE-flash? pretty cheap and works now. We have 1152 of 
them working fine here at LANL.

ron

[Steve Gehlbach]

Eric Ziegast wrote:
> I found some cheap motherboards from Amptron that make an ideal
> terminal server or low-power workstation.  It's the PIII-3787CLM+.
> You might recognize the motherboard if you bought one of those
> $199 Fry's/Walmart PCs recently.  The motherboard + 733MHz Via C3
> costs about $70 retail.  It comes with just about everything you
> need for a desktop: AGP Video, AC97 sound, 10/100 Ethernet, and
> USB.  All I need to do is add a floppy drive, some RAM, and then boot.
>
> Motherboard specs:
>   http://www.amptron.com/html/MotherboardP3_M787CL+_frame.html

Try http://www.knowledgemicro.com/detail.php?name=MB-M787CL%2B at 
$52.27.  Says its 1GHZ but otherwise the same.  This boots under 
linuxbios with vga and local disk but I have not done it for etherboot. 
  Should be only an hour or so of work, though.

-Steve