FOSDEM devroom request

[Rudolf Marek]

Hi all,

I have written following to the devroom request.

Thanks.
Rudolf

Hello,

We would like to  ask for common devroom for both collaborating projects - 
Coreboot and Flashrom.

Coreboot is a Free Software project aimed at replacing the proprietary BIOS 
(firmware) you can find in most of today's computers.

Flashrom is a utility for identifying, reading, writing, verifying and erasing 
flash chips. It is designed to flash BIOS/EFI/coreboot/firmware/optionROM images 
on mainboards, network/graphics/storage controller cards, and various programmer 
devices.

Both projects are closely related, for example, the Coreboot uses Flashrom to 
write the images. Both attract people which like the hardware and close to the 
hardware system programming.

On the last FOSDEM there was a Coreboot devroom. Flashrom presented itself only 
during Carl Daniel's lightning talk. This year is a great opportunity for both 
projects to share a common devroom to attract hardware oriented people together. 
As for the devroom topic, we would like to offer more hands-on sessions and kind 
of mini lectures explaining various parts of non-trivial problematics which both 
project face. If one judges the last year Coreboot devroom attendance, we had 
all the time full room, which was nice although we prepared "just" lectures 
about the project (with demo) and "how stuff works" oriented lectures. Our aim 
for this year is to bring both projects even closer to potential users or 
developers using above mentioned more individual approach.

We would also like to apply for the main talk track to catch an attention of 
completely new users or developers which never heard of our projects. The 
intended topic of the talk would be more general and serve as the introduction 
to this interesting part of computer hardware & software.

[coreboot] FOSDEM devroom request

[Rudolf Marek]

Hello all,

I also applied for main talk track. I think more people can do this.

Thanks,
Rudolf

We would like to present a talk aimed to very close look to various stages of 
x86 hardware initialization. We start with hardware description of typical x86 
system including flash storage. We switch to the software part, defining the CPU 
state while it fetches first instruction. We present a step by step procedure 
with a descriptions of various steps (DRAM initialization, 
Northbridge/Southbridge initialization) necessary to bring the system to point 
where it can boot OS. Luckily there are Free software projects working so close 
to bare metal - Coreboot, SeaBIOS and Flashrom, which we would like to introduce 
during the talk.

[coreboot] FOSDEM devroom request

[Carl-Daniel Hailfinger]

Hi Rudolf,

thank you very much for applying for a main track talk and a devroom. I
hope we will get the chance to do both.

On 16.10.2010 23:20, Rudolf Marek wrote:
> I have written following to the devroom request. [...]
> I also applied for main talk track.

I will be there, and if we get the opportunity to talk, I will join you.
For the devroom I think I could offer a basic talk about flashrom, an
advanced talk about flashrom, and a talk about libhwremoteaccess (to be
released soon).

Depending on how much spare time I have, maybe I can present faster
serialice hardware as well.

Regards,
Carl-Daniel