[OpenBIOS] OpenBIOS PowerPC missing open firmware commands

[Tarl Neustaedter]

On 2011-Jul-20 10:58 , Alexander von Gluck wrote:
>
> Thanks for the information. Do you know of a fb8-install method + 
> arguments that would work on qemu and real hardware?

Unfortunately, I'm not familiar with QEMU itself - my interest in 
OpenBIOS is that I work on OpenBoot (another IEEE 1275 implementation) 
at Sun/Oracle.

> Here is the situation:
> Our boot menu works on the Apple OpenFirmware implementation as-is 
> without fb8-install. (and erase-screen, etc work)

That sounds right. fb8-install is supposed to be called by the video 
driver once things are set up, to define what parameters can be used. 
That something the display driver writes, not you.

> Out boot menu needs fb8-install on OpenBIOS to function (which is the 
> correct way from what I gather in the OpenFirmware specs)

More properly, it sounds like you need a system where the video driver 
has called fb8-install. The point is that your boot menu needs a bunch 
of display-specific methods and whatever video driver QEMU is using 
doesn't seem to have them.

>
> Calling fb8-install alone on the Apple hardware (PowerMac 3,5 4.2.5f1) 
> seems to cause the screen to lock up an no longer update.

Oh, yeah. Don't do that. Apple probably does something different. 
fb8-install is supposed to be the last step after the video driver has 
set everything up, and they probably install things in some other way. 
fb8-install is probably clobbering whatever they did.

> Calling fb8-install alone on OpenBIOS does overlay erase-screen, 
> etc... however they don't do anything (see attached) 

Right. The problem wasn't you failing to call fb8-install, it's display 
driver support for all the video functions you are calling. I pointed 
you at fb8-install simply to get you in the right area - all the other 
fb8-* functions also have to be defined and have to be backed up by a 
display driver that implements them.