[coreboot] elf payload legacybios - boots on v3 in qemu

[Kevin O'Connor]

Hi Myles,

On Tue, May 13, 2008 at 08:48:59AM -0600, Myles Watson wrote:
> Could we do something simple like not use the CMOS for Coreboot, but
> use a place in the EBDA to be "CMOS"?  I realize that we won't be able
> to set it permanently like real CMOS, but we could configure it from a
> libpayload payload.  If we put the cmos section above the ata_s
> structure it would be in a fixed place, which would probably help.

The inb/outb_cmos functions are used for other functions besides
accessing nvram.  Redirecting these functions would cause the clock
functions to cease working.


Most of the uses of nvram in "legacybios" is as a mechanism to pass
data from the emulator to the guest.

There are only two nvram variables that are read and written by
"legacybios":

CMOS_RESET_CODE (0x0f) - this is used to implement some sort of
    "resume" functionality.  However, since the bios doesn't implement
    the corresponding "suspend", I'm not sure it's really useful.

CMOS_CENTURY (0x32) - this stores part of the date that doesn't fit in
    the rtc - the '20' in 2008.  I suppose we could hard code this if
    we really didn't want to store it in the nvram.

There are several nvram values that are only read by "legacybios":

CMOS_FLOPPY_DRIVE_TYPE (0x10) - this appears to be a standard - even
    linux uses it.

CMOS_EQUIPMENT_INFO (0x14) - I think we can remove this dependency -
    almost everything in it is already auto-detected.

CMOS_BIOS_DISKTRANSFLAG (0x39) - This controls how the bios maps disk
    CHS calls to LBA.  I think this may be auto-detected - if not, it
    can be passed in via coreboot.

CMOS_DISK_DATA (0x12)
hd geometry (0x19 - 0x2c) - These settings can and should be
    auto-detected from the ide drive.

CMOS_MEM_EXTMEM_LOW   (0x30)
CMOS_MEM_EXTMEM_HIGH  (0x31)
CMOS_MEM_EXTMEM2_LOW  (0x34)
CMOS_MEM_EXTMEM2_HIGH (0x35)
    - These are used as a mechanism for passing system memory size.

CMOS_BIOS_BOOTFLAG1 (0x38)
CMOS_BIOS_BOOTFLAG2 (0x3d)
    - These are used to control boot flags and boot order.

So, I think "legacybios" should have a simple test at startup - when
in bochs/qemu mode read the above nvram variables and store them in
internal storage; when in coreboot mode gather the info from coreboot
and store them in internal storage and avoid using nvram.

-Kevin