On 28.08.2007 19:38, Uwe Hermann wrote: > On Tue, Aug 28, 2007 at 12:48:06AM +0200, Carl-Daniel Hailfinger wrote: >>> created. So I carefully wonder what the real goal of such a call would >>> be, except gathering random people with random boards? Something like: >>> We have 10 people who are willing to work on this or that mainboard if >>> you get them a system they can keep for doing the work, given that the >> Would it be possible to create sort of a pseudo-port which only ensures >> working RAM, serial and flashing? Such a pseudo-port would leave people > > No, "working RAM" is already 95% of the work in most cases.
If that were the case, we'd have dozens of recent boards supported. Think of all the MCP55 boards. RAM works. North- and southbridge are supported. The "little things" are what keep us from supporting them completely. A generic MCP55 port which loads the payload (additional board init etc.) over serial can be the ideal starting point. >> Maybe a call for action for tools only? Flashrom and probe_superio >> support are necessary requirements for easy porting. And if our tools >> get used for stuff besides LinuxBIOS (maybe in the lm-sensors project or >> somewhere else), they get wider testing coverage and maybe even outside >> contributors. I see this chance especially for flashrom. > > Yes, I agree on that. We should really get more people to use flashrom, > not only as cheap advertising for LinuxBIOS but also because it really > _is_ a lot better than all those crappy "use DOS boot disk" or "create > CDROM with DOS *.exe flasher on it" solutions people keep recommending > all the time. > > I've written up a short article on that already, see > http://www.hermann-uwe.de/blog/flashing-a-bios-the-linux-way-tm-using-flashrom > > (and I think the "flashrom on about 140 computers" was a direct result > of that post) > > http://www.linuxbios.org/pipermail/linuxbios/2007-July/023046.html Maybe publish an article on lwn/slashdot/whatever about flashrom? You'd have to make sure people merge MAC addresses and other stuff from the old into the new image, though, otherwise we'll have a load of boards with the same MAC address and quite a few of them may have 00:00:00:00:00:00, resulting in malfunction of some switches, network stacks etc. >> People want to flash their proprietary BIOS under Linux now, without >> having to reboot. They benefit from flashrom support for their system as >> much as we do. Giving people a working tool for something that is really >> complicated right now could even make them interested in LinuxBIOS. >> After all, they would have to visit our website to get flashrom. > > Full ack. How can we advertise flashrom some more? Article in widely read publication. I'll contact lwn.net and report back. Regards, Carl-Daniel -- linuxbios mailing list linuxbios@linuxbios.org http://www.linuxbios.org/mailman/listinfo/linuxbios
