[coreboot] POWER9 / Talos II coreboot support?

Timothy Pearson tpearson at raptorengineering.com
Sat May 12 09:34:26 CEST 2018


-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
Hash: SHA256

On 05/03/2018 06:02 PM, ron minnich wrote:
> 
> 
> On Thu, May 3, 2018 at 1:20 PM Timothy Pearson
> <tpearson at raptorengineering.com <mailto:tpearson at raptorengineering.com>>
> wrote:
> 
>     -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
>     Hash: SHA256
> 
>     I think I was being a bit pessimistic / too careful here.  We're close
>     to getting the docs publicly released, but that doesn't help anyone
>     wanting access right now, which is why I mentioned the other route.
>     IBM's committed to getting the documentation released, they're just
>     making sure that what they release is actually correct for the products
>     it covers.
> 
>     It might make sense to get our "working group" together over the next
>     few weeks, by which time the documentation should be available in public
>     form.
> 
>     Are you interested in joining? :-)
> 
> 
> of course, but not until those docs are freed up. 
> 

We're getting there.  First manual to be released is the processor user
guide.  More to follow, including register documentation, in around a week.

Users guide:

https://wiki.raptorcs.com/wiki/File:POWER9_um_OpenPOWER_v20GA_09APR2018_pub.pdf

> Context: I've been trying for 2 years now to get OPAL released under
> dual gpl2 licensing with the current apache2 license, apache2 and gpl2
> are not compatible, so we'd be in a bit of a mess should we use OPAL
> code in coreboot, and it would be easiest if we were able to use some of
> that code.
> 
> The first response from IBM was "why do you think you need coreboot?" I
> worked through that, and there was agreement in the end it ought to
> happen, said agreement reached about 2 years ago. Stuff Would Happen, I
> was told. After that, silence.

We've reignited this.  It's underway. :-)

> This is pretty much par for the course with Power. In 1990 I spent two
> years getting an agreement that would allow me to .... get more agreements. 

We've plowed through this already and are at the action point.  For the
most part, just let me know what you need and I'll see if we can get it
published.

> So close doesn't count. Once I see the kind of docs I need to see, not
> requiring a clickwrap, and covering all aspects of every chip on your
> board, I'm in: I'll order a board. Until then, I can't really do much.

Is the NIC an issue?  There are several people working on REing the
hardware with some great progress [1][2], but there's really no way to
get Broadcom to ever release official documentation.  Everything else on
the libre-friendly non-SAS version either has docs available or we are
close to getting them published.

> Thanks for your efforts on Power!

No problem!  We still consider Power the best path forward for powerful
libre systems at this point, getting really tired of the other vendors
actively working against efforts to create open firmware (this includes
SiFive at this point).

Will keep you posted as we get more docs published online, but thought
you and the others here might at least be interested in the users guide.

> ron
> 
>  

[1] https://wiki.raptorcs.com/wiki/BCM5719
[2] IRC discussions on #talos-workstation

- -- 
Timothy Pearson
Raptor Engineering
+1 (415) 727-8645 (direct line)
+1 (512) 690-0200 (switchboard)
https://www.raptorengineering.com
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE-----
Version: GnuPG v1

iQEcBAEBCAAGBQJa9pj/AAoJEK+E3vEXDOFbF70IAJohByTnLWTDC/I5q4FNi/on
bS+gTBs373Cd5iIFaYCrVxYU4udDIDy3fjhBG6Y64AjQFtu4KSXkjbR/aldfnk36
mUfOul59kY+DDIaQOBEuHBsq0YoF1oFy4LBbiSpZXTZh5SDAbSleeg6tKJDqzR4Z
zirXrZN8Vsv+FneQmbXAt+LqqveZcKTUz5vG5GaJCC/i6fyrkr/oI9Ffw/vlFcAI
3d9Ni/YzuKmdQN+rPcvJViNoBYsQ0aumAwrTc45omZDK5Mg3I+B+6vC27CDhwB23
TtKNw456tF5i0P9NhqjdQnqMdNc2BvocJQxyXOfvnPSXHW6DSAV4tT3+lh8PAyM=
=EbtA
-----END PGP SIGNATURE-----



More information about the coreboot mailing list