[LinuxBIOS] tyan s2881

[Ward Vandewege]

Hi there,

First of all, thanks for upgrading the SVN tree, it now compiles without
problems (but still lots of warnings ;) for the Tyan s2881.

I've managed to build a Linuxbios image, using FILO 0.5 and the latest
subversion revision of the Linuxbios tree (2141).

So I've compiled filo, built the rom image, and burned the rom into our
biossavior. This is the filo configuration file I used:

  USE_GRUB = 1
  MENULST_FILE = "sda1:/grub/menu.lst"
  AUTOBOOT_FILE = "sda1:/vmlinuz-2.6.12-9-amd64-generic root=/dev/sda4 console=tty0 console=ttyS0,19200n8"
  AUTOBOOT_DELAY = 4
  IDE_DISK = 1
  VGA_CONSOLE = 1
  PC_KEYBOARD = 1
  SERIAL_CONSOLE = 1
  SERIAL_IOBASE = 0x3f8
  SERIAL_SPEED = 19200
  FSYS_EXT2FS = 1
  FSYS_FAT = 1
  FSYS_REISERFS = 1
  FSYS_ISO9660 = 1
  ELTORITO = 1
  SUPPORT_PCI = 1
  PCI_BRUTE_SCAN = 1
  LINUX_LOADER = 1
  PCI_CONFIG_1 = 1

I'm unsure about the references to sda in the MENULST_FILE and AUTOBOOT_FILE
parameters. This is how my running kernel sees the SATA drives; Linuxbios
supports booting from SATA, right?

The Config.lb I'm using is:

  target s2881
  mainboard tyan/s2881

  # Tyan s2881
  romimage "normal"
    option ROM_SIZE = 475136
    option USE_FALLBACK_IMAGE=0
    option ROM_IMAGE_SIZE=0x20000
    option XIP_ROM_SIZE=0x20000
    option LINUXBIOS_EXTRA_VERSION="$(shell cat ../../VERSION)_Normal"
    payload ../../../../../payloads/filo.elf
  end

  romimage "fallback"
    option USE_FALLBACK_IMAGE=1
    option ROM_IMAGE_SIZE=0x20000
    option XIP_ROM_SIZE=0x20000
    option LINUXBIOS_EXTRA_VERSION="$(shell cat ../../VERSION)_Fallback"
    payload ../../../../../payloads/filo.elf
  end

That's pretty much the stock version from the SVN tree.

I used the flashrom tool to burn & verify the image. That works perfectly.

Unfortunately, when trying to boot it, nothing happens. Nothing on the screen
(but I didn't expect that as I'm still not clear about the whole vga bios
thing). I've hooked up another linux box for capturing the serial output, and
verified that that setup works (serial login to s2881 works, running the
proprietary bios). 

When booting linuxbios, there is no output on the serial line.

This MB has POST leds onboard; when booting from poweroff, they remain stuck
at FF when using the linuxbios image. When booting the proprietary image,
they cycle through a whole range of numbers, to finish on 00 once the system
is up.

I have a feeling I'm missing something important. Any pointers?

Thanks,
Ward. 

--
Ward Vandewege <ward at fsf.org>
Free Software Foundation - Senior System Administrator