[coreboot] GA-MA78G-DS3H (support)

[Bernhard Urban]

Hey Andre,

I try to answer your mail, but I'm still a newbie here too (sorry for
the late answer)

On Wed, Sep 12, 2012 at 8:19 PM, Andre Fabricius
<fabricius.andre at googlemail.com> wrote:
> model: GA-MA78G-DS3H Rev.1
> north bridge: AMD 780G
> south bridge: AMD SB700
> [...]
> Vendors product description:
> http://www.gigabyte.com/products/product-page.aspx?pid=2800#sp
>
> I think this board is "comparable" (is it ?) to the supported
> "GA-MA78GM-US2H".

Yes, the chance is rather high that this port works out-of-the-box or
with little modification for your board. However, probably no one will
do the work for you (maybe someone will try it if you donate hardware
to a coreboot developer).

To get started, do the following steps:
(0) read a introduction to coreboot, for example
http://lennartb.home.xs4all.nl/coreboot/coreboot.html
(1) play around with coreboot and QEMU. Get familiar with the building
environment (you'll find information in the wiki).
(2) join the IRC channel. People are friendly there
(3) get a serial adapter for your mainboard
(4) you need a second PC/laptop for debugging your actual target
(5) figure out how the dual-bios mechanism is useful for coreboot. In
worst case, get further bios chip before flashing anything. Remember,
this is a dangourous process when things go wrong (see "Column 7" in
the link above).
(6) start hacking. A good starting point is the "GA-MA78GM-US2H" port,
as it has the same north- and southbridge. If you see something on the
serial line, this is general a good sign :-)
(7) don't give up!


Good luck and feel free to ask for help,
Bernhard