[coreboot] Wyse S10 Geode GX2

[andrew at cogman.info]

> Hi Andrew,
>
> I am interested in getting coreboot running on the Wyse S50, and am also
> wondering if the VSA for the LX will work on these devices. Have you
> actually found source code for the GX2? Or only a compiled VSA?
>

Hi Jamie,

I haven't found any different source code I'm afraid, I tried and then
gave up getting the geode toolchain working.

I reasoned that all GX BIOS's must use a VSA, the BIOS on the Wyse Sx0 is
XpressROM or XpressLoader by Insyde. I couldn't find any of the tools to
work with these so I looked for alternatives.
I reckon most of the boards developed will follow the AMD GX2 development
kit fairly closely, although I'm not sure that matters here?

So I searched the web and found the closest matched specification
industrial board with an Award BIOS - the IEI Wafer-GX.
I downloaded the BIOS update, then used bios_extract to pull the vsa2.bin
out. I know this is frowned-upon and I don't know whether it will work!
It's a different size to the one Fijam used and sofar I can't get it to
boot, although I think that's my fault configuring Coreboot wrong.

> Following Fijam's blog, and doing a lot of searching, I have managed to
> piece together the strange/old toolchain for making the VSA. Very
> detailed instructions are in my post:
>
> http://www.coreboot.org/pipermail/coreboot/2014-January/076992.html
>

I saw your post only after I gave up on the toolchain, thanks for
detailing your steps, it's very helpful and I may go back and try to get
the toolchain working.

> I can succesfully build the VSA, but haven't come as far as actually
> flashing a device and testing it out.
>
> Is this the same toolchain that you use?
>
> I hope you can keep us up to date with your progress, I know there are a
> few people who would love to get coreboot on their wyse devices.
> Personally, I plan to run NanoBSD on them, but am plagued with pci bus
> hangs under boot - a problem caused by the factory BIOS.
>
>    -Jamie
>
> P.S. I also have a few spare S10 devices, so hopefully I can start
> testing soon as well

The toolchain I was talking about below was the coreboot reference
toolchain, not the VSA one.

Although the OLPC uses the LX, the geode-vsa sources seem to be for all
the geode CPU's and it includes the CS5536 as well?

Would you be willing to send me a copy of the VSA you compiled so I can
see if that works? I think all the Sx0-02L versions are the same so
hopefully it should work on any of them.

Thanks,
Andrew

>
> On 16-02-2014 20:08, andrew at cogman.info wrote:
>> Hi,
>>
>> I'm fairly new at this and I'm trying to get coreboot and SeaBIOS
>> working
>> on a Wyse S10 and I've hit a problem and wondered if anyone can help.
>>
>> I've compiled the reference toolchain and used that with the latest Git
>> version and the one mentioned in Fijam's blog
>> (http://fijam.eu.org/blog/how-to-put-coreboot-on-wyse-s30s50/) but they
>> both stop at the same place.
>>
>> I've obtained a copy of the GX2 VSA (through methods I probably can't
>> mention here), but it's a different size to the one Fijam used?
>> Is this a fault with the VSA or have I made a rookie mistake somewhere?
>>
>> .config and bootlog attached.
>>
>> Thanks,
>> Andrew
>
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