[coreboot] [RFC] Netbook Support

[Jordan Crouse]

ron minnich wrote:
> This is a place where I'd like us to pick a common most-appropriate
> notebook and go for it.
> 
> So which of these is the most likely to be doable? We'll have to solve
> the EC problem.

But don't be confused as to what the "EC problem" really is.  We've 
discussed this before on this very list:  Open firmware for the EC would 
be great, but it is a problem on the scope of coreboot itself, since 
every platform would need a slightly "custom" variant of the firmware, 
and over time you would end up needing to support different "chips" for 
different "mainboards".  Certainly that is an interesting problem to 
solve, but I don't think that it is _our_ problem to solve.

Coreboot would be much better served by operating with the "stock" 
firmware.  Don't get me wrong - this is still a challenge because, like 
I said in IRC yesterday, we don't know what we don't know.   Behavior at 
runtime is fairly standardized, but we don't know what we need to do for 
initialization - do we need to set up registers, put in tables, kick 
things, or will it all Just Work (TM)?

I guess the only way to find out is to start trying - enough 
documentation exists (especially for th ENE) that we can probably 
determine how large the firmware is and extract it from a stock ROM, and
try it out.  From what I have heard, I think the VIA processors are the 
best bet right now for experimentation.  Intel of course, is out, and 
AMD processors aren't in any netbooks to speak of - and I'm sure if we 
go to this effort, we would rather have it pay off for a netbook rather 
then a dinosaur laptop.

Jordan