[coreboot] Coreboot on an Acer Aspire 3680?

Daniel Levine dlev89 at gmail.com
Thu Dec 4 21:17:38 CET 2008


My Aspire 3680 has a bad BIOS, is no longer under warranty, and is
already leaning towards obsolescence a year and a half after its
purchase;  I'm wondering if Coreboot might work on it.

The output of lspci follows:
00:00.0 Host bridge: Intel Corporation Mobile 945GM/PM/GMS, 943/940GML
and 945GT Express Memory Controller Hub (rev 03)
00:02.0 VGA compatible controller: Intel Corporation Mobile 945GM/GMS,
943/940GML Express Integrated Graphics Controller (rev 03)
00:02.1 Display controller: Intel Corporation Mobile 945GM/GMS/GME,
943/940GML Express Integrated Graphics Controller (rev 03)
00:1b.0 Audio device: Intel Corporation 82801G (ICH7 Family) High
Definition Audio Controller (rev 02)
00:1c.0 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 82801G (ICH7 Family) PCI Express
Port 1 (rev 02)
00:1c.1 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 82801G (ICH7 Family) PCI Express
Port 2 (rev 02)
00:1c.2 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 82801G (ICH7 Family) PCI Express
Port 3 (rev 02)
00:1d.0 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801G (ICH7 Family) USB
UHCI Controller #1 (rev 02)
00:1d.1 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801G (ICH7 Family) USB
UHCI Controller #2 (rev 02)
00:1d.2 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801G (ICH7 Family) USB
UHCI Controller #3 (rev 02)
00:1d.3 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801G (ICH7 Family) USB
UHCI Controller #4 (rev 02)
00:1d.7 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801G (ICH7 Family) USB2
EHCI Controller (rev 02)
00:1e.0 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 82801 Mobile PCI Bridge (rev e2)
00:1f.0 ISA bridge: Intel Corporation 82801GBM (ICH7-M) LPC Interface
Bridge (rev 02)
00:1f.2 IDE interface: Intel Corporation 82801GBM/GHM (ICH7 Family)
SATA IDE Controller (rev 02)
00:1f.3 SMBus: Intel Corporation 82801G (ICH7 Family) SMBus Controller (rev 02)
02:00.0 Ethernet controller: Marvell Technology Group Ltd. 88E8038
PCI-E Fast Ethernet Controller (rev 14)
03:00.0 Ethernet controller: Atheros Communications Inc. AR242x
802.11abg Wireless PCI Express Adapter (rev 01)
0a:09.0 CardBus bridge: Texas Instruments PCIxx12 Cardbus Controller
0a:09.2 Mass storage controller: Texas Instruments 5-in-1 Multimedia
Card Reader (SD/MMC/MS/MS PRO/xD)

How well are 945GM and 82801G supported? Could I actually have
Coreboot working on this machine, or would I only succeed in bricking
it? Would I need custom code for the laptop?

Also, for whatever it's worth - can Coreboot load GNU GRUB (or
FreeBSD's BTX bootloader) instead of a Linux kernel?




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