On 29.08.2007 16:47, Uwe Hermann wrote: > On Tue, Aug 28, 2007 at 08:17:45PM +0200, Carl-Daniel Hailfinger wrote: >> 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. > > Why? I don't really see a use for this. If someone is able to run such > a payload, build LinuxBIOS, test patches etc. it's not much additional > work to just add proper support for the board in the first place. > No need for such a "test-payload", I think.
The "you can always reflash the old BIOS" feeling gives confidence to porters who might not have a replacement chip handy. >> 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. > > Can you elaborate? Where is the MAC address stored? On which boards? > I doubt that all boards out there do this. What happens if you download > a BIOS image from $VENDOR website? Does the flasher contain special code > to deal with the MAC address? The MAC address is stored in flash for almost all CK804/MCP55 boards. All of these boards flashed with LB probably have the same MAC address. See src/southbridge/nvidia/ck804/romstrap.inc and src/southbridge/nvidia/mcp55/romstrap.inc for details. On some of these boards, the MAC address is stored in a separate EEPROM, but you can't count on that. Regards, Carl-Daniel -- http://www.hailfinger.org/ -- linuxbios mailing list linuxbios@linuxbios.org http://www.linuxbios.org/mailman/listinfo/linuxbios
