[LinuxBIOS] PC Engines ALIX board - flashrom

Peter Stuge peter at stuge.se
Tue Aug 14 15:26:13 CEST 2007


On Tue, Aug 14, 2007 at 03:14:40PM +0200, Ingmar Schraub wrote:
> I got a new PC Engines ALIX board, which comes with the Geode LX800
> / CS5536 chip.
> 
> Since Pascal Dornier from PC Engines has shipped another board to
> Ron Minnich a few days ago, I contacted him already. Ron is
> interested in helping, but away for the next two weeks.

If PC Engines want to support LB I'd say that's an advantage over the
competition. :)


> So I got started, trying to let 'flashrom' detect the pieces. Note:
> I am an absolutely beginner when it comes to LinuxBIOS! So please
> forgive me if I explain things a bitn odd or wrong. ;-)
> 
> The chipset is not detected.
> 
> FLASH_ENABLE enables[] need an entry for 0x1022, 0x2090 and a
> enable_flash function.  That's problem #1. What must be done inside
> flash_enable for that flash?

Stepan told me what was needed for the LX at LinuxTag but I forgot.
It wasn't too much.

enable_flash_*() are used to set specified bits in the southbridge to
allow writes to go out to the flash chip.


> Problem #2: the flash device is not deteced.

This is because of (1). Writes need to go through to the flash chip
in order to successfully detect the chip type.

There may also be a need for a new board_enable_alix() if some
additional GPIO signals are protecting the write signal to the flash.


> However, I read on the flash chip "SST 49LF040B". According to the
> flashrom sources it should be supported.

Yep, it is, but until flashrom can get access to it (through the
southbridge) we lose.


> Any idea what's wrong here or what I would need to do?

Look up how to enable flash writes in the LX data book and implement
enable_flash_geodelx() for a start.


//Peter




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