[coreboot] BIOS bootblock branching to coreboot

[Joseph Smith]

On Mon, 30 Jun 2008 11:45:00 +0200, "jf simon" <yeticluns at gmail.com> wrote:
> Hi,
> my understanding (sorry if wrong) is that it is not possible to run
> linuxbios/corebios on intel platforms, because of lack of documentation.
> i am wondering what are the problematic parts.. probably MCH controler
> DRAM
> init?  CPU init (microcode, stepping,...)?..
> this is sad, as i really want to be able to use corebios..
> 
> very recently i have been assigned to porting BIOSEs to our new hardware
> plaftorms. so i am working with amibios. it is partitionned into two
major
> pieces:
> -bootblock
> -post/main bios
> 
> bootblock is a 64K segment, where the CPU is configured and MCH sdram
> controller is init (based on code provided by intel). then it branches to
> post for devices init, pci enum...
> 
> it must be doable technically, to keep the fast, tiny bootblock and jump
> to
> something like corebios . any comments?
> i don't know if this is the place to ask but is it possible from a legal
> standpoint  to modify an amibios prom binary and just keep parts of it,
in
> case i want to use this scheme in the products of the company i work for?
> 
Hello Eric,
I don't know where you got your information, but coreboot is able to run on
Intel platforms. We have quite a few Intel systems running coreboot with no
problems. The only problem with Intel platforms is the lack of support from
Intel. If the datasheet is publicly available, you can use that to port the
board. All you have to do is find a currently supported board that is close
and use that for your new base code, and modify it according to the
datasheet. I don't really understand your question about mixing coreboot
with amibios. I don't think that really is feasable or realistic. The only
part you may want to use from amibios is the vga rom. Hope that helps.

-- 
Thanks,
Joseph Smith
Set-Top-Linux
www.settoplinux.org