Hi all, it is great to see that the topic: "LinuxBIOS in VMware" is current again* and that there are new advances.
*="again" means following: -- http://www.google.de/search?q=bios440+linuxbios -- http://www.mail-archive.com/[email protected]/msg09993.html -- http://www.mail-archive.com/[email protected]/msg10054.html -- http://linuxbios.org/pipermail/linuxbios/2006-January/013288.html -- ... Well, because it would really interessting to use an open source BIOS in VMware soon, here are some further information and notes which may be helpful for running experiments with: -- VMware and LinuxBIOS -- different VMware Option ROMs -- VMware Option ROM related switches in the VMware configuration file 1.) bios440.filename = "" --> it is the magic switch to avoid that VMware uses the built-in BIOS and that it uses an external BIOS file instead. 2.) Jamie Gavahan wrote: > notice there is no parameter for e1000 cards. In contrast to the emulated devices: "AMD Am79C970A - PCnet LANCE PCI Ethernet Controller" and: "VMXNET - VMware PCI Ethernet Adapter", there seems to be no parameter for disabling the emulated "Intel E1000" Option ROM / for "removing" the virtual e1000 Option ROM FlashROM . But there is a switch to set the Option ROM size: ".opromsize" If you set the size to zero, then no e1000 Option ROM will be loaded. Example for an emulated e1000 NIC without OPROM: ethernet0.present = "True" ethernet0.virtualDev = "e1000" ethernet0.startConnected = "TRUE" ethernet0.connectionType = "custom" ethernet0.flashWriteable = "True" ethernet0.opromsize = "0" # ( "4294967295" = max. size without getting an VMware error message ;-) .) 3.) Jamie Gavahan wrote: > These have unknown values: > svga.noOprom > ethernet%u.opromsize svga.noOprom = "True" # (default= "False") ... means that the emulated VMware VGA device will be used, but will not have an Option ROM. If you start VMware with: "svga.noOprom = "True"" then the VMware Phoenix BIOS will output the typical PC speaker sounds ;-) . Hints: a) svga.vramSize = "xxx" # ( "16777216" = max value) ... can change the video memory size b) vbios.filename= "path to video BIOS file" ... forces VMware to uses an external Video BIOS filename 4.) To simply get/extract the VMware VGABIOS file and the other VMware Option ROMs / BIOS files from the VMware executable(without starting VMware and without building a bootdisk that would contain a VGABIOS dumping tool), you can use: a) "objdump" and "objcopy" http://www.vmware.com/community/thread.jspa?threadID=28149&tstart=0 b) "resource hacker"/"reshack" (or other resource editors) --> for Windows users / for VMware Windows version 5.) Interesting links: http://www.google.de/search?q=bios440+linuxbios http://www.google.de/search?q=vmware+linuxbios http://www.etherboot.org/wiki/vmwarebios -------- Original-Nachricht -------- Datum: Sun, 11 Mar 2007 04:32:49 -0600 Von: "Jamie Gavahan" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> An: "Joe Pub" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> CC: [email protected] Betreff: Re: [LinuxBIOS] LinuxBIOS, VMWare & CMOS > On 3/9/07, Joe Pub <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > Hi All, > > > > I am getting closer to having VMWare working with a LinuxBIOS BIOS. I > > had an issue which I was unsure of, where certain compile options > > would just not work with VMWare. I have finnaly figured out why that > > is. > > > > By enabling CONFIG_PCI_ROM_RUN for instance, includes extra object > > files within the resulting binary, hence making the used part of the > > ROM image greater. Here lies my problem. VMWare seems to load the > > LinuxBIOS rom, but then overwrite the address at 0xFA000 with 8K of > > NVRAM data, basically overwriting portions of the LinuxBIOS code. > > > > So what I was wondering, what would be the best approach to reserve > > that area of memory to that it does not corrupt any of the LinuxBIOS > > code. > > Have you figured out what VMWare is overwriting part of linuxBIOS with? > Is linuxBIOS loaded into VMWare with the bios440.filename parameter? > > I think that VMWare is overwriting that part of memory with updated > NVRAM information, loading video BIOS, or loading ethernet card ROM > to that address. I'm not sure what you've tried already, but I've found > some > configuration file parameters that might help figure out what's going on. > > nvram.mode = "nonpersistent" > This prevents changes to NVRAM; maybe this is what you are looking for? > > nvram = "/path/file" > This defines a custom NVRAM to be loaded. > > vlance.noOprom = "true" > vmxnet.noOprom = "true" > These disable the ROM on ethernet cards, freeing up some memory; > notice there is no parameter for e1000 cards. > > e1000bios.filename = "/path/file" > nbios.filename = "/path/file" > The former is the path to a ROM file for the Intel ethernet card; the > latter > is the path to a ROM file for the AMD PCnet and VMXnet ethernet adapters. > > These have unknown values: > svga.noOprom > ethernet%u.opromsize > > I'm going to start looking into linuxBIOS in VMWare, both as a replacement > BIOS for guest OSs, and to develop with linuxBIOS easier. I haven't tested > any of the parameters above, but plan to soon; now you can tinker with > them > too! > > jgav > > -- > linuxbios mailing list > [email protected] > http://www.openbios.org/mailman/listinfo/linuxbios -- Der GMX SmartSurfer hilft bis zu 70% Ihrer Onlinekosten zu sparen! Ideal für Modem und ISDN: http://www.gmx.net/de/go/smartsurfer -- linuxbios mailing list [email protected] http://www.openbios.org/mailman/listinfo/linuxbios
