How to test

[Vikram Hegde]

Hi,

I am a newbie interested in contributing to coreboot. One question I have is testing.

How do most people test  new bits. Do they actually flash the BIOS on their motherboards. Doesn't that cause issues because as I understand these PROMs only support a limited number of flashes before they go bad ? Or do folks use some sort of  emulator and/or spare chips to keep testing.

Also any inexpensive standalone bios chip programmers on the market ?

Thanks,
Vikram

[Corey Osgood]

On Wed, Dec 17, 2008 at 2:16 PM, Vikram Hegde  wrote:
> Hi,
>
> I am a newbie interested in contributing to coreboot. One question I have
> is testing.
>
> How do most people test  new bits. Do they actually flash the BIOS on their
> motherboards. Doesn't that cause issues because as I understand these PROMs
> only support a limited number of flashes before they go bad ? Or do folks
> use some sort of  emulator and/or spare chips to keep testing.

You definitely want spare chips, if coreboot fails for any reason, you need
to have your stock BIOS accessable, all the stock BIOS's failsafes are
overwritten by coreboot. Todays flash chips can survive thousands of
erase/write cycles, and most chips cost <$5USD. I have a now-discontinued
product called the BIOS Savior RD-1 that I'm currently using, it has a
second flash chip and a socket for the original chip built into it, so all
you do is flip a switch to change from one chip to the other. If you can
find one that works with your system, they're an awesome tool. My testing
cycle is basically:

Boot stock bios (base Debian testing install, boots in ~30 seconds)
Throw switch or change chip
Flash spare chip w/coreboot, transferred via USB flash drive
Shut down
Fire up minicom on my other computer, to monitor coreboot progress
Press power button, see what happens
Shut down
Throw switch or change chip back, repeat.

I also hacked flashrom so that it can't detect my stock BIOS chip, only the
spare chip I use for testing coreboot, so I can't accidentally overwrite the
stock BIOS.
> Also any inexpensive standalone bios chip programmers on the market ?

Yes, but most are also very slow. My willem (~$50USD) takes around 7min to
program a 512k chip through a parallel port, and it only works under 32-bit
windows, or some have reported success with linux and wine. I've only used
it maybe 3 or 4 times, to reprogram stock BIOS's before I smartened up and
hacked flashrom, and also programmed another spare chip with the stock BIOS
and stuffed it in an envelope in a file cabinet. Also see the discussion on
the list about the Paraflasher, a similar in-development LPC flasher that
will work under linux when it's done, but again it will probably be fairly
slow.

Hope this helps,
Corey

[Vikram Hegde]

Hi,

Thanks, that helps a lot. BTW, I went to the IOSS website and it appears to claim that the BIOS Savior is still available.

Vikram

________________________________
From: Corey Osgood 
To: Vikram Hegde 
Cc: [e-mail]
Sent: Wednesday, December 17, 2008 12:50:30 PM
Subject: Re: [coreboot] How to test

On Wed, Dec 17, 2008 at 2:16 PM, Vikram Hegde  wrote:

Hi,

I am a newbie interested in contributing to coreboot. One question I have is testing.

How do most people test  new bits. Do they actually flash the BIOS on their motherboards. Doesn't that cause issues because as I understand these PROMs only support a limited number of flashes before they go bad ? Or do folks use some sort of  emulator and/or spare chips to keep testing.

You definitely want spare chips, if coreboot fails for any reason, you need to have your stock BIOS accessable, all the stock BIOS's failsafes are overwritten by coreboot. Todays flash chips can survive thousands of erase/write cycles, and most chips cost <$5USD. I have a now-discontinued product called the BIOS Savior RD-1 that I'm currently using, it has a second flash chip and a socket for the original chip built into it, so all you do is flip a switch to change from one chip to the other. If you can find one that works with your system, they're an awesome tool. My testing cycle is basically:

Boot stock bios (base Debian testing install, boots in ~30 seconds)
Throw switch or change chip
Flash spare chip w/coreboot, transferred via USB flash drive
Shut down
Fire up minicom on my other computer, to monitor coreboot progress
Press power button, see what happens
Shut down
Throw switch or change chip back, repeat.

I also hacked flashrom so that it can't detect my stock BIOS chip, only the spare chip I use for testing coreboot, so I can't accidentally overwrite the stock BIOS.

Also any inexpensive standalone bios chip programmers on the market ?

Yes, but most are also very slow. My willem (~$50USD) takes around 7min to program a 512k chip through a parallel port, and it only works under 32-bit windows, or some have reported success with linux and wine. I've only used it maybe 3 or 4 times, to reprogram stock BIOS's before I smartened up and hacked flashrom, and also programmed another spare chip with the stock BIOS and stuffed it in an envelope in a file cabinet. Also see the discussion on the list about the Paraflasher, a similar in-development LPC flasher that will work under linux when it's done, but again it will probably be fairly slow.

Hope this helps,
Corey

[Paul Menzel]

Dear Vikram,

great that you are interested.

Am Mittwoch, den 17.12.2008, 13:06 -0800 schrieb Vikram Hegde:
> Thanks, that helps a lot.

[…]

It would be valuable if you could share your first touches with
coreboot. Some information you asked for is already present on the
website. Where would you have expected this information to find it more
easily for interested people?

Thanks,

Paul

[Vikram Hegde]

Hi Paul,
> great that you are interested.

Thanks.
> It would be valuable if you could share your first touches with
> coreboot. Some information you asked for is already present on the
> website. Where would you have expected this information to find it more
> easily for interested people?

Sorry, my mistake, I should have taken a more careful look at the website. I have mostly been silently monitoring the mail on this mailing list for the past few weeks. But you are right, the website is the best place for this info.

Vikram

________________________________
From: Paul Menzel 
To: [e-mail]
Cc: Vikram Hegde 
Sent: Wednesday, December 17, 2008 2:01:58 PM
Subject: Re: [coreboot] How to test

Dear Vikram,

great that you are interested.

Am Mittwoch, den 17.12.2008, 13:06 -0800 schrieb Vikram Hegde:
> Thanks, that helps a lot.

[…]

It would be valuable if you could share your first touches with
coreboot. Some information you asked for is already present on the
website. Where would you have expected this information to find it more
easily for interested people?

Thanks,

Paul

[Paul Menzel]

Dear Vikram,

Am Mittwoch, den 17.12.2008, 14:13 -0800 schrieb Vikram Hegde:
> > It would be valuable if you could share your first touches with
> > coreboot. Some information you asked for is already present on the
> > website. Where would you have expected this information to find it more
> > easily for interested people?
>
> Sorry, my mistake, I should have taken a more careful look at the
> website. I have mostly been silently monitoring the mail on this
> mailing list for the past few weeks. But you are right, the website is
> the best place for this info.

No problem. If one has looked at the website a lot of times, one knows
where some stuff is located.

So my question was just if you have some suggestions to maybe highlight
some links more so that it catches ones eyes when one just takes a
glance at the website. Maybe the FAQ and maybe add something to it.

Thanks,

Paul

[Vikram Hegde]

Hi Paul,

ok, I will take a good look at the website and send you my feedback.

Thanks,
Vikram

________________________________
From: Paul Menzel 
To: [e-mail]
Sent: Wednesday, December 17, 2008 2:27:49 PM
Subject: Re: [coreboot] How to test

Dear Vikram,

Am Mittwoch, den 17.12.2008, 14:13 -0800 schrieb Vikram Hegde:
> > It would be valuable if you could share your first touches with
> > coreboot. Some information you asked for is already present on the
> > website. Where would you have expected this information to find it more
> > easily for interested people?
>
> Sorry, my mistake, I should have taken a more careful look at the
> website. I have mostly been silently monitoring the mail on this
> mailing list for the past few weeks. But you are right, the website is
> the best place for this info.

No problem. If one has looked at the website a lot of times, one knows
where some stuff is located.

So my question was just if you have some suggestions to maybe highlight
some links more so that it catches ones eyes when one just takes a
glance at the website. Maybe the FAQ and maybe add something to it.

Thanks,

Paul

[Paul Menzel]

Dear Vikram,

Am Mittwoch, den 17.12.2008, 15:06 -0800 schrieb Vikram Hegde:
> ok, I will take a good look at the website and send you my feedback.

Well, I guess now you would be biased, because you look for something. ;-)

Just, write the next time, when you look for something and did not find
it or you found it hard to find it.

Sorry for getting on your nerves.

Paul

[Peter Stuge]

Vikram Hegde wrote:
> I went to the IOSS website and it appears to claim that the BIOS
> Savior is still available.

Some models are still in production.

Which mainboard do you have? And which flash chip is your original
BIOS stored in?

//Peter

[Vikram Hegde]

Hi,
> > Vikram Hegde wrote:
> > I went to the IOSS website and it appears to claim that the BIOS
> > Savior is still available.
> Some models are still in production.
> Which mainboard do you have? And which flash chip is your original
> BIOS stored in?

The one I am planning to use is an ASUS M2N-MX SE Plus. The motherboard is still in the mail so i don't know what flash chip it uses.

Vikram

________________________________
From: Peter Stuge 
To: [e-mail]
Sent: Wednesday, December 17, 2008 4:35:41 PM
Subject: Re: [coreboot] How to test

Vikram Hegde wrote:
> I went to the IOSS website and it appears to claim that the BIOS
> Savior is still available.

Some models are still in production.

Which mainboard do you have? And which flash chip is your original
BIOS stored in?

//Peter