Hm, It seems that my way is buggy, But it works. ;-)
I am trying to use the VGA with LinuxBIOS. since I am trying to use the Xwindows. if you want to start the Xserver, you must have the vgabios. I think when the Xserver startup, it will probe the videocard. but since the LinuxBIOS does not have the videobios. so the Xserver crash. you can using the Xserver with the kernel framebuffer driver. such as fbdev. but it lack the ability of hardware accel. such as play the movie fullscreen. so use the ADLO & bochs bios & vgabios will give you a second way to run the Xserver. since the LinuxBIOS switch the CPU into protected mode early, and the commercial vgabios runs in realmode. so the commercial vgabios cann't run after the LinuxBIOS. so the ADLO will do some preparation works. Load the bochs bios & vgabios. switch the CPU to the realmode. execute the bochs bios. the bochs will try to init the vgabios first.it scan the address 0xC0000 to 0xC7FFF in 2k increments. and then scan the General ROM from 0xC8000 to 0xDFFFF in 2k increments, so if we put the etherboot+AA patch after the address of vgabios. the etherboot will be excuted after bochs init the vgabios. the way why I do this is that the bochs bios is lack the ability of dealing with the real hardware. such as ide harddisk. In my experiment, when I use the IBM 30G harddisk. the speed of lilo & grub load the kernel normally, but when I use the flash IDE. the speed of lilo & grub , or syslinux, is too slow.
if you want to run the etherboot with the bochs bios. you must do some work yourself. first, using ADLO to get your own vgabios. my mainboard chipset is sis630. the vgabios is 48kb. plus the etherboot+AA rom. and the bochs bios .altogether 144kb. and the ADLO only provide 3 types of elf loader. so you must create the 145kb loader yourself. and also modify the loader.s. and you will need to modify the etherboot5.0.6+AA patch too.
hope help. Best regards.
Hi Bendany,
Perhaps I missed something in your email.. But if you've loaded ADLO + Bochs BIOS then you have Int13 support. Why not run Grub from the flash disk then instead of etherboot+AA? Is it because of the speed?
- Adam Agnew
On Thu, 1 May 2003, bendany wrote:
Hm, It seems that my way is buggy, But it works. ;-)
I am trying to use the VGA with LinuxBIOS. since I am trying to use the Xwindows. if you want to start the Xserver, you must have the vgabios. I think when the Xserver startup, it will probe the videocard. but since the LinuxBIOS does not have the videobios. so the Xserver crash. you can using the Xserver with the kernel framebuffer driver. such as fbdev. but it lack the ability of hardware accel. such as play the movie fullscreen. so use the ADLO & bochs bios & vgabios will give you a second way to run the Xserver. since the LinuxBIOS switch the CPU into protected mode early, and the commercial vgabios runs in realmode. so the commercial vgabios cann't run after the LinuxBIOS. so the ADLO will do some preparation works. Load the bochs bios & vgabios. switch the CPU to the realmode. execute the bochs bios. the bochs will try to init the vgabios first.it scan the address 0xC0000 to 0xC7FFF in 2k increments. and then scan the General ROM from 0xC8000 to 0xDFFFF in 2k increments, so if we put the etherboot+AA patch after the address of vgabios. the etherboot will be excuted after bochs init the vgabios. the way why I do this is that the bochs bios is lack the ability of dealing with the real hardware. such as ide harddisk. In my experiment, when I use the IBM 30G harddisk. the speed of lilo & grub load the kernel normally, but when I use the flash IDE. the speed of lilo & grub , or syslinux, is too slow.
if you want to run the etherboot with the bochs bios. you must do some work yourself. first, using ADLO to get your own vgabios. my mainboard chipset is sis630. the vgabios is 48kb. plus the etherboot+AA rom. and the bochs bios .altogether 144kb. and the ADLO only provide 3 types of elf loader. so you must create the 145kb loader yourself. and also modify the loader.s. and you will need to modify the etherboot5.0.6+AA patch too.
hope help. Best regards.
On Thu, 1 May 2003, bendany wrote:
I am trying to use the VGA with LinuxBIOS. since I am trying to use the Xwindows. if you want to start the Xserver, you must have the vgabios. I think when the Xserver startup, it will probe the videocard. but since the LinuxBIOS does not have the videobios. so the Xserver crash.
no, the problem is that the Xserver emulation of an 8086 has bugs, and so it crashes. There are some real problems with the X11 VGA support.
you can using the Xserver with the kernel framebuffer driver. such as fbdev. but it lack the ability of hardware accel. such as play the movie fullscreen. so use the ADLO & bochs bios & vgabios will give you a second way to run the Xserver. since the LinuxBIOS switch the CPU into protected mode early, and the commercial vgabios runs in realmode. so the commercial vgabios cann't run after the LinuxBIOS. so the ADLO will do some preparation works. Load the bochs bios & vgabios. switch the CPU to the realmode. execute the bochs bios. the bochs will try to init the vgabios first.it scan the address 0xC0000 to 0xC7FFF in 2k increments. and then scan the General ROM from 0xC8000 to 0xDFFFF in 2k increments, so if we put the etherboot+AA patch after the address of vgabios. the etherboot will be excuted after bochs init the vgabios. the way why I do this is that the bochs bios is lack the ability of dealing with the real hardware. such as ide harddisk. In my experiment, when I use the IBM 30G harddisk. the speed of lilo & grub load the kernel normally, but when I use the flash IDE. the speed of lilo & grub , or syslinux, is too slow.
Actually, this is very helpful but not completely right. I am glad you got your vga to work however.
ron
----- Original Message ----- From: "ron minnich" rminnich@lanl.gov To: "bendany" bendany@mistdl.com Cc: linuxbios@clustermatic.org Sent: Tuesday, April 29, 2003 6:49 AM Subject: Re: Another way of using ADLO
On Thu, 1 May 2003, bendany wrote:
I am trying to use the VGA with LinuxBIOS. since I am trying to use the Xwindows. if you want to start the Xserver, you must have the vgabios. I think when the Xserver startup, it will probe the videocard. but since the LinuxBIOS does not have the videobios. so the Xserver crash.
no, the problem is that the Xserver emulation of an 8086 has bugs, and so it crashes. There are some real problems with the X11 VGA support.
That you means the Xserver can run without vgabios? or we can modify the Xserver, to make it support LinuxBIOS? I am not clear with this. may be you can explain more.
Actually, this is very helpful but not completely right. I am glad you got your vga to work however.
I have an idea. that is , since we don't have time or documents to write the vga driver. we can make LinuxBIOS to support the origianl vgabios. Just like ADLO, but somewhat simplify just only init the vgabios. and then jump into protect mode again. because the vgabios is distributed with mb. we can get it legally.
ron
Linuxbios mailing list Linuxbios@clustermatic.org http://www.clustermatic.org/mailman/listinfo/linuxbios
On Tue, 29 Apr 2003, bendany wrote:
I have an idea. that is , since we don't have time or documents to write the vga driver. we can make LinuxBIOS to support the origianl vgabios. Just like ADLO, but somewhat simplify just only init the vgabios. and then jump into protect mode again. because the vgabios is distributed with mb. we can get it legally.
well, that support is in there already.
ron
On Tue, 29 Apr 2003, bendany wrote:
That you means the Xserver can run without vgabios? or we can modify the Xserver, to make it support LinuxBIOS? I am not clear with this. may be you can explain more.
it means you need to fix the x86 emulation in x11, as it has errors. Linuxbios emulator fixed the errors.
I have an idea. that is , since we don't have time or documents to write the vga driver. we can make LinuxBIOS to support the origianl vgabios. Just like ADLO, but somewhat simplify just only init the vgabios. and then jump into protect mode again. because the vgabios is distributed with mb. we can get it legally.
Already done.
ron
On Tue, 2003-04-29 at 21:49, ron minnich wrote:
On Thu, 1 May 2003, bendany wrote:
I am trying to use the VGA with LinuxBIOS. since I am trying to use the Xwindows. if you want to start the Xserver, you must have the vgabios. I think when the Xserver startup, it will probe the videocard. but since the LinuxBIOS does not have the videobios. so the Xserver crash.
no, the problem is that the Xserver emulation of an 8086 has bugs, and so it crashes. There are some real problems with the X11 VGA support.
Well, for some version of Xserver for SiS chipsets, it requires register table embedded in VGABIOS image. So you need the image in the C segment anyway.
----- Original Message ----- From: "ollie lho" ollie@sis.com.tw To: "Ronald G Minnich" rminnich@lanl.gov Cc: "bendany" bendany@mistdl.com; "LinuxBIOS Mailing List" linuxbios@clustermatic.org Sent: Wednesday, April 30, 2003 9:50 AM Subject: Re: Another way of using ADLO
On Tue, 2003-04-29 at 21:49, ron minnich wrote:
On Thu, 1 May 2003, bendany wrote:
I am trying to use the VGA with LinuxBIOS. since I am trying to use
the
Xwindows. if you want to start the Xserver, you must have the vgabios.
I
think when the Xserver startup, it will probe the videocard. but since the LinuxBIOS does not have the videobios. so the Xserver crash.
no, the problem is that the Xserver emulation of an 8086 has bugs, and
so
it crashes. There are some real problems with the X11 VGA support.
Well, for some version of Xserver for SiS chipsets, it requires register table embedded in VGABIOS image. So you need the image in the C segment anyway.
Today I try the K7SEM mb. And doesn't work with the Correct VGA display. But the Xserver works. maybe other mbs can do this.
-- ollie lho ollie@sis.com.tw
Linuxbios mailing list Linuxbios@clustermatic.org http://www.clustermatic.org/mailman/listinfo/linuxbios
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Adam Agnew -
bendany -
ollie lho -
ron minnich