[LinuxBIOS] Opinions needed: CN700 graphics support

[Corey Osgood]

Okay, I understand no one has done this, so I'm looking for your best
speculation. What are the chances of the VGA rom for the CN700 either
loading correctly or working with the hacks used on the vt8623? I'm
talking about full X server support, with the crappy Via drivers (since
Luc's don't support it).

Thanks,
Corey

[Peter Stuge]

On Sat, Mar 31, 2007 at 12:06:30AM -0400, Corey Osgood wrote:
> Okay, I understand no one has done this, so I'm looking for your
> best speculation. What are the chances of the VGA rom for the CN700
> either loading correctly or working with the hacks used on the
> vt8623?

What hacks?
> I'm talking about full X server support, with the crappy
> Via drivers (since Luc's don't support it).

I'd say chances are good, but it may need some help underway. At some
point LANL initialized a stack of different graphics cards with
onboard ROMs but lately there have been some problems with x86emu.
(Maybe that's just in v3?)

You could get burned if the VGA BIOS requires lots of special
interrupt services only in VIA's BIOS, then they have to be
re-implemented in x86emu.

Go for it and see if it works. :)

//Peter

[ron minnich]

On 3/30/07, Peter Stuge  wrote:
> Go for it and see if it works. :)

And, of course, never forget that we're always here, ready to help!

thanks

ron

[Corey Osgood]

Peter Stuge wrote:
> On Sat, Mar 31, 2007 at 12:06:30AM -0400, Corey Osgood wrote:
> > Okay, I understand no one has done this, so I'm looking for your
> > best speculation. What are the chances of the VGA rom for the CN700
> > either loading correctly or working with the hacks used on the
> > vt8623?
>
> What hacks?

Comments in either the vt8623 code or the wiki that I've stumbled across
led me to believe there was some special setup needed for it. This is
the only comment I could find:
/* code to make vga init run in real mode - does work but against the
current Linuxbios philosophy */

But I guess that's just for the regular vga BIOS. I thought somewhere
I'd seen something about special setup for the vt8263, guess I'm mistaken.
> > I'm talking about full X server support, with the crappy
> > Via drivers (since Luc's don't support it).
>
> I'd say chances are good, but it may need some help underway. At some
> point LANL initialized a stack of different graphics cards with
> onboard ROMs but lately there have been some problems with x86emu.
> (Maybe that's just in v3?)
>
> You could get burned if the VGA BIOS requires lots of special
> interrupt services only in VIA's BIOS, then they have to be
> re-implemented in x86emu.

Ick, I really don't like the sounds of that, lets hope it's not
necessary. Thanks for the quick replies though!

Thanks,
Corey

[Stefan Reinauer]

* Corey Osgood  [070331 07:18]:
> > You could get burned if the VGA BIOS requires lots of special
> > interrupt services only in VIA's BIOS, then they have to be
> > re-implemented in x86emu.
>
> Ick, I really don't like the sounds of that, lets hope it's not
> necessary. Thanks for the quick replies though!

Oh that's going to be a piece of cake once you have DDR2 and V-Link set
up correctly.

Stefan