Level 2 cache activation code?

Svante Signell svante.signell at telia.com
Wed Oct 1 02:42:00 CEST 2003


Ron,

Thank you for your reply. Maybe there is hope after all.

On Wed, 2003-10-01 at 01:34, ron minnich wrote:
> On Tue, 30 Sep 2003, Svante Signell wrote:
> 
> > i) Does this code work for 440BX motherboards?
> 
> it's processor-dependent, 440bx or not is not an issue.
Thanks for the info. To clarify  I'll split the question into three:
i) Does LinuxBIOS work for 440BX-based mother-boards, single and dual?
Downloading the code from CVS shows support for Intel L440GX+ and a
patch for linux-2.4.13, not 440BX or kernels later than 2.4.13. Also, I
did not find anything about MSI mainboards.
ii) Does the cache activation code work for Mendocino, Coppermine,
Tualatin and newer Intel processors? Will it work for the VIA C3
Nehemiah?
iii) How much of the boot process in GNU/Linux the BIOS responsible for?
I thought that the kernel was only dependent on the BIOS for a few
functions, such as different HW initialisations: CPU, memory, disks, etc
compared to Windows 9x etc. Any pointers?

> > ii) Is it possible to extract this code and try out after the kernel has
> > booted (slowly), to verify my assumption?
> 
> yes, we tested it that way. You can try it. 
I will try. Which files do I need in addition to src/cpu/p6/l2_cache.c?

> > iii) Is there some other tool available for cache activation?
> 
> Not sure.
> 
> > iv) One interesting continuation would be to try to replace the MSI
> > (AMI) BIOS with linuxbios, but as a first step I think this would be a
> > little risky.
> 
> well, so far, given the track record of many of these BIOSes, I'm not sure 
> how risky that is ...
With risks I meant the chance of being left with a dead motherboard... I'm always
nervous when flashing the BIOS that something will happen, for example a sudden power
loss, regardless of where the BIOS originates from.

> ron
BTW: Why is this work called LinuxBIOS (except maybe for historical
reasons). Will other OSes (eg GNU/Hurd) boot with LinuxBIOS now or in
the future? Maybe then something like FreeBIOS should be used instead.

Thanks,
Svante



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