OpenBIOS

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4297 discussions

Re: BIOS Autodetection Design
by Ray Jones 12 Jan '99

12 Jan '99

>The objective is not to write OpenBIOS such that (in practice) a single >compiled image can boot any chipset. Rather, the autodetect objective is >that a set of chipsets may be chosen at compile time from which the image >is about to boot. Thus, for example, a MB manufacturer could compile a >BIOS such that one image would work for all the MBs that they manufacture. If this (compile time selection) is the objective, why call it autodetect? I would have thought from the name that one image fits all. Then, at run time it is autodetected, requiring all of the tables at once. -Ray

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BIOS Autodetection Design
by Eric R. Kern 11 Jan '99

11 Jan '99

> After alot of thinking about this I've come to the conclusion that I agree > that there should be autodetection of chipsets. I have been reading some > pciset documents from Intel, and as Andrew says there is really only > smaller differences (between the PCI chipsets that is). But all this > depends on one things; if it is possible to, with 100% accuracy, determine > what chipset the BIOS is running on. If this is possible, is see no reason > not to include autodetection. A wild guess is that the code for the > various chipsets (all together) is not more then a couple of kB. I'll give you a little help with sizing the chipset code since I have had some experience with this (I am a BIOS programmer for IBM's Commercial Desktop Division). Upon bootup of a system, there are many PCI configuration registers that need to be set to a certain value in order for the system to boot DOS (let alone a sophisticated operating system like Linux, Windows NT or Windows 98). These registers are generally set through a table early on in POST (Power On Self Test). The autodetecting BIOS would need to keep a table for every chipset that it detects. The tables for all of the chipsets that you want to support would fill any BIOS EEPROM on the market and you haven't even written one line of code yet. I think I have a better design. There are generally three ways of modifying the BIOS on a computer. The first way is to pull the EEPROM off the mother board and "burn" an image using an EEPROM burner. The second way is to enable boot block recovery mode, put the desired flash image in the floppy drive (or whatever media that was preselected) and turn the computer on. (Boot block recovery mode is usually a jumper setting that runs a "bare bones" portion of BIOS in order to load the desired image.) The third way is through a flash utility. The flash utility should run from DOS (or maybe Linux for you Linux fans out there). DOS is used since this utility is run at manufacturing time before an operating system has been loaded onto the harddrive and DOS fits nicely onto a floppy. My proposed design would have the system boot to a CDROM (more space and everyone has one) which boots DOS. The autodetection would be built into the flash utility. The chipset and other hardware detected by the flash utility would load the appropriate modules. These modules would then be put together to form a BIOS image and a table of pointers to each module would be created at a specified location in the image. +------------------------+ FFFFh | Jmp Vector | +------------------------+ | Table of Pointers | +------------------------+ | North Bridge Config. | +------------------------+ | South Bridge Config. | +------------------------+ | Cache Configuration | +------------------------+ | Memory Configuration | +------------------------+ | ISA Configuration | +------------------------+ | PCI Configuration | +------------------------+ | Keyboard Controller | +------------------------+ | BIOS Functions (int 15)| +------------------------+ | Planar Hardware | +------------------------+ | Etc. | +------------------------+ E000h Just a thought. Good luck. Eric R. Kern

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None
by Richard Klosinski 23 Dec '98

23 Dec '98

im working with 0.0.1, and found a potential problem. in start.asm, the 8042 is initialized. the problem is the my 8042 is in my sio! there are a few register emulated by the elan, and somewhere in the 8042_init its getting hung (well hung). Richard Klosinski Manager of System Integration Thermogenesis Corp. "Hallelujah, Holly Shit, where's the Tylenol"

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None
by Richard Klosinski 23 Dec '98

23 Dec '98

i dl the 0.0.1 codebase, and have started adding support for my target, the sc400. i added all the init stuff, and my super io stuff, then compiled w/o problem! but, of course, it does nothing. today, i will try to find one of those diag cards so i can write messages out. im not sure how to cordinate changes with others. i have modified the .config.in file, and a few of the make files (to accept new vars for my hardware). Richard Klosinski Manager of System Integration Thermogenesis Corp. "Hallelujah, Holly Shit, where's the Tylenol"

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adding to menu config
by Richard Klosinski 22 Dec '98

22 Dec '98

i tried using the bios, and of course it did not boot on my system (elansc400). so im am working on a init for the sc400 and the ns97306 sio. i would like to add these into the menu config, and not being my unix, how do i do this. Richard Klosinski Manager of System Integration Thermogenesis Corp. "Hallelujah, Holly Shit, where's the Tylenol"

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bios and the amd sc400
by Richard Klosinski 22 Dec '98

22 Dec '98

sorry for the number of post, but im really interested in this project. my design uses the AMD elanSC400. I have already wrote code to boot WinCE (sorry), so I have knowledge of what needs to be done to init the elan. Richard Klosinski Manager of System Integration Thermogenesis Corp. "Hallelujah, Holly Shit, where's the Tylenol"

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None
by Richard Klosinski 22 Dec '98

22 Dec '98

Sorry, just after i posted my last message, i got 4 emails for the list! anyway. im interested in working on this project. if anyones interested, i have a copy of Anabooks AT BIOS kit. I use it all the time as a reference when writing embedded PC stuff where I junk the BIOS altogether. BTW. i can dl the codebase, but cannot unzip/untar it? Richard Klosinski Manager of System Integration Thermogenesis Corp. "Hallelujah, Holly Shit, where's the Tylenol"

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None
by Richard Klosinski 22 Dec '98

22 Dec '98

Is there anyone on this lists? Richard Klosinski Manager of System Integration Thermogenesis Corp. "Hallelujah, Holly Shit, where's the Tylenol"

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(no subject)
by Ruud Cox 22 Dec '98

22 Dec '98

auth d98f49a3 subscribe openbios r.cox(a)ehv.tass.philips.com

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Fwd: Holidays and a snapshot
by Daniel Engstrom 22 Dec '98

22 Dec '98

Hello All! Stefan have the snapshot (hopefully). /Daniel ------ Forwarded message ------ From: daniel.engstrom(a)riksnett.no Subject: Holidays and a snapshot Date: Tue, 22 Dec 1998 15:44:13 +0100 (CET) To: stepan(a)wesley.informatik.uni-freiburg.de Reply-To: daniel.engstrom(a)riksnett.no Hello Stefan, It's been a while... Anyway, I haven't had that much time for coding the last month or so, (had to spend some time doing my day-job). But I have made some small progress and since I will go away until Jan 9 99 I hereby present you with a snapshot as of today. Improvements: * Ali 1511 boots now. (See ugly hacks in boot/tools/build.c) * An initial implementation of a memory allocator. * A prototype runtime configuration mechanism. (A cross breed of environment variables and the Linux command line) * Random stuff Merry Christmas and Happy New year. /Daniel -- Do you use MS Mail? If so please note that my email addresses are: daniel(a)lillfab.se - Work related. daniel.engstrom(a)riksnett.no - Private.

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