OpenBIOS June 2000

openbios@openbios.org

24 participants
34 discussions

linuxbios status
by Ronald G Minnich 10 Jun '00

10 Jun '00

1) we're booting on two machines from power up: SiS 630 (procomp bst1b mainboard) and L440GX+. No intervention needed, they just come up. 2) we've got a first cut at parameter passing from linuxbios to linux. We're passing memory size and are working on cmdline now. cmdline is being placed in the right place. We're gradually removing the #ifdef LINUXBIOS code from our 2.3.99-pre5 kernel. In the limit we should be able to boot any linux. 3) we're working on nvram writes and SMP startup on the L440GX I'm out for the next week so checkins will quiet down. I'm going to check in the tree as of its current state. I'll be watching email, so if you hit a problem let me know. ron - To unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo(a)freiburg.linux.de with 'unsubscribe openbios' in the body of the message

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keybord.c
by Edwin Rhodes 08 Jun '00

08 Jun '00

hi, what do i have to change in: /usr/src/linux/drivers/char/keyboard.c to make the Numlock come on automatically every time i boot my pc? i've set the bios to put numlock on at boot but every time linux boots i re-initalises the keyboard and turns numlock off.. this is a real pain as i have to keep on remembering to turn it on. thanks edwin

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Re: [fb-d] hda fix
by James Hendricks 08 Jun '00

08 Jun '00

We have jammed the HD controller on; it now works completely from powerup on the Intel and the SiS.. Next steps: 1) Figure out how to write to NVRAM from Linux on the 440 -- this may take a while. 2) Get SCSI up (which means fixing the PCI setup, I believe). 3) Getting CirrusFB to work without a VGA BIOS.. This will be a pain.. 4) Get the Alpha up. 5) Get the ServerWorks (Dell PowerEdge 2450) board up. 6) Get NT to boot (I know everyone hates it, but...) 7) Figure out how to set IDE registers to make it do more than PIO mode. 8) Get parameter passing from LinuxBIOS to Linux so you can boot any Linux Kernel. 9) SMP support. Anything else? This will go onto the web page. Yippee. - James On Thu, 8 Jun 2000, Ronald G Minnich wrote: > For now, we're going a primitive fix to make the kernel wait for hda. > > There's some reference in ide-probe.c to a way to make cmdline args cause > the kernel to wait for the drive to spin up. Anybody know what the arg > is? It's not root=/dev/hda1 .... > > thanks > > ron > > > _______________________________________________ > Freebios-devel mailing list > Freebios-devel(a)lists.sourceforge.net > http://lists.sourceforge.net/mailman/listinfo/freebios-devel > - To unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo(a)freiburg.linux.de with 'unsubscribe openbios' in the body of the message

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It's there.
by Ronald G Minnich 08 Jun '00

08 Jun '00

you should now see a working SDRAM init for L440gx+ ron - To unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo(a)freiburg.linux.de with 'unsubscribe openbios' in the body of the message

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L440GX+ SDRAM
by Ronald G Minnich 08 Jun '00

08 Jun '00

works. James Hendricks and I worked out the last problem today. We'll verify it more tomorrow but it's looking good. I'm updating the cvs tree in a few minutes. ron - To unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo(a)freiburg.linux.de with 'unsubscribe openbios' in the body of the message

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sis 630 boots to multiuser from nvram from power-on
by Ronald G Minnich 07 Jun '00

07 Jun '00

As of today, for the first time, we're booting to multiuser linux from a power-on. This is on the sis 630. The BIOS is dead! caveats: 1) the sisfb code is not working yet, we're using a matrox again. SiS is working hard on this one. 2) from power on, linux boots so fast that our ide hard disk is not ready, so does not show as present. The cdrom doesn't have such a problem. So you have to hit reset :-( This is going to mean a kernel repair possibly. Not sure. I don't want to handle this in the traditional sleep(3) fashion. There's way too much of that nonsense in Linux already, esp. in /etc/rc.d/* 3) It's only going to use 64M of ram, no matter what you put in there. We're working on that. I've figured out how to have linuxbios pass params to the kernel. Hint: it's not something mentioned on this list yet :-) The image at the sourceforge can be used to generate the romimage that works. The bootup really is shockingly fast, it's quite fun. unrelated news: james hendricks may have fixed SDRAM on the L440GX. Memory seems to be working from power-up. We may have two different machines working by Friday. ron - To unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo(a)freiburg.linux.de with 'unsubscribe openbios' in the body of the message

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VGA BIOS for SiS 630
by Ollie Lho 07 Jun '00

07 Jun '00

Hello Guys, Finally, the vga bios guys provided us their "trimmed" version of VGA BIOS for 630/300. The source code is in MASM and intended to be used for "Standard BIOS" enviroment. Some hard work is necessary for FreeBIOS and LinuxBIOS project. Jeff, Please take a (deep) look at it. We are going to begin another round of sending out M/B since now it is much easier to make things sync with CVS now. Yes, you will get one, I am counting on you to figure those VGA stuff out ;-) Ollie

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boot times on sis630
by Ronald G Minnich 06 Jun '00

06 Jun '00

Linuxbios: 35 seconds. A fraction of a second of this time is linux, the rest is the rc.d scripts. Next job is to fix this mess. BIOS: 87 seconds. 35 seconds as above, plus 52 seconds for the bios to to its thing. such fun. ron - To unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo(a)freiburg.linux.de with 'unsubscribe openbios' in the body of the message

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SiS 630 Status Udpate
by Ollie Lho 04 Jun '00

04 Jun '00

Ron, Could you please give us the status update on those topic ? DRAM SIZING Could intel_sis630ram.S work on your M/B, does it get corrrect value for ALL three DIMM with Signle/Double sided DRAM ?? SiS' status: yes, all three DIMM and single/double sided DRAM combination ares O.K. Keyboard Can your keybord controller works properly ?? have you monitor port 0x60 to see the scan code you type on keyboard ?? SiS' status: yes, we got correct scan code every time we press the keyboard. Frame Buffer Device Can you use SiSFB or MatroxFB to show the message on monitor ?? If the answer is yes, which Frame Buffer Device are you using ?? How and What is the EXACT procedure to do it ?? SiS' status: no, we can not make SiSFB work under current romimage. We are pushing VGA BIOS group very hard to release the code ASAP. For the moment, we are considering using Matrox FB instead of SiSFB, if you are succeeded in setting up MatroxFB. (We will be back on SiS FB once VGA BIOS provide enough information). PCI configuration (PCI IDE and etc.) Can you init the PCI devices ?? especially PCI IDE ?? since we need PCI IDE to mount root filesystem. CVS configureation What is the progression you and Jeff made in putting LinuxBIOS on FreeBIOS CVS ?? Other things Do you have another thing you want to know ?? What else do you want to sync with us ?? P.S We are having a long weekend this week. K.M. and I will not here until June 7, but we will keep monitoring the maillist. Ollie - To unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo(a)freiburg.linux.de with 'unsubscribe openbios' in the body of the message

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Current States of LinuxBios on SiS 630
by Ollie Lho 03 Jun '00

03 Jun '00

Ron, We can boot the kernel from power-on now. With the romimage which will be sent to you seperately, we can reach the point of kernel_thread(init,...); in arch/i386/kernel/setup.c which means that everything is ready and we are going to load/execute scripts in rc.d. We are using kernel-2.3.99pre5 with the patch in export.tgz. If you can monitor port 0x80 with debug card you can get 0xed at the end. We don't experience the keyboard problem you described, does that happen after the kernel_thread() ?? After initrc are executed ?? The frame buffer device driver is included in 2.4.0-test1 and later kernel. There is some bug in Config.in which makes the option absent when make config, but it is really easy to fix. I think we should move to 2.4.0 now since we are going to need fbdev real soon. Finally, could you please put your source to the FreeBIOS CVS ?? Usually we are unsure if our version matches yours, you know, things like this make a lot of trouble. BTW, we are asking VGA BIOS group to release more information/source code. I hope we can turn on the monitor ASAP, using ICE and debug card is really a pain in the ass. P.S. Jeff, could you review the sisfb for us ?? What are we missing from the driver for this special purpose ?? Ollie - To unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo(a)freiburg.linux.de with 'unsubscribe openbios' in the body of the message

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