Re: [coreboot] BIOS bootblock branching to coreboot

[Jensen Qin]

Hi Eric,

Sorry for misunderstand you idea.

AMI's bootblock is only a piece of code to do the pre initializition before
POST. It can do nothing to improve the BIOS's function and compability. As
my idea, jump to coreboot from AMI's bootblock may be useless.

I don't think bootblock is a good idea for "C" based BIOS, a good
implementation of BIOS I think should have only a small and smart kernel to
schedule jobs, and others should compiled as drivers and modules to do
initial, run and post. Maybe most of the code, include northbridge,
southbridge, memory init and other chipset related code can write as driver
and modules. I have not see any BIOS archive all of this.  In fact, EFI also
implement some of that, they take a way most like Microsoft's driver model,
and EFI also seperate different jobs as modules.

coreboot also take the way like modules as I see, and I think if the
coreboot can make some interface same like linux kernel, then some of
linux kernel driver can porting to coreboot smoothly.

On 6/30/08, jf simon  wrote:
> Hi,
> my understanding (sorry if wrong) is that it is not possible to run
> linuxbios/corebios on intel platforms, because of lack of documentation.
> i am wondering what are the problematic parts.. probably MCH controler DRAM
> init?  CPU init (microcode, stepping,...)?..
> this is sad, as i really want to be able to use corebios..
>
> very recently i have been assigned to porting BIOSEs to our new hardware
> plaftorms. so i am working with amibios. it is partitionned into two major
> pieces:
> -bootblock
> -post/main bios
>
> bootblock is a 64K segment, where the CPU is configured and MCH sdram
> controller is init (based on code provided by intel). then it branches to
> post for devices init, pci enum...
>
> it must be doable technically, to keep the fast, tiny bootblock and jump to
> something like corebios . any comments?
> i don't know if this is the place to ask but is it possible from a legal
> standpoint  to modify an amibios prom binary and just keep parts of it, in
> case i want to use this scheme in the products of the company i work for?
>
> thanks
> eric