Re: Porting Linuxbios to Via P4m266A
* [EMAIL PROTECTED] [EMAIL PROTECTED] [050302 06:03]: I have written back asking for permission to disclose the contents without NDA. I have pointed out the benefits they are going to derive. Let's see how it goes. I have a feeling that they may allow disclosure without NDA. Many vendors accept releasing the code produced after reading such specs while they don't allow the specs themselfes to be revealed. Also, you can offer them to review the code before releasing it. Stefan ___ Linuxbios mailing list Linuxbios@clustermatic.org http://www.clustermatic.org/mailman/listinfo/linuxbios
Re: Porting Linuxbios to Via P4m266A
On Wednesday 02 March 2005 13:38, Stefan Reinauer wrote: * [EMAIL PROTECTED] [EMAIL PROTECTED] [050302 06:03]: I have written back asking for permission to disclose the contents without NDA. I have pointed out the benefits they are going to derive. Let's see how it goes. I have a feeling that they may allow disclosure without NDA. Many vendors accept releasing the code produced after reading such specs while they don't allow the specs themselfes to be revealed. Also, you can offer them to review the code before releasing it. Stefan Ok. As a fallback plan. If they do not permit spec release, I plan to wax eloquent to them if we succeed. May be they will get it. rgds jtd ___ Linuxbios mailing list Linuxbios@clustermatic.org http://www.clustermatic.org/mailman/listinfo/linuxbios
Re: Porting Linuxbios to Via P4m266A
* Peter Karlsson [EMAIL PROTECTED] [050302 13:31]: Ok, it's just that I have an intel m/b (i875-based) and from what I've gathered there's no support for any newer intel chips than the 440xX, so a hack like that would perhaps enable me to experiment (me play to ;-). Of course I need to get a hold of a bios-saviour kit first since this is my only 'puter (currently)... A good way for the adventurous is to boot the machine, swap the chip while it is running, flash the new chip, and reboot. This way you only need a decent chip claw for not even 10 bucks. Yes, you do risk wasting your motherboard theoretically, and no, it never happened to me in the last 5 ys Stefan ___ Linuxbios mailing list Linuxbios@clustermatic.org http://www.clustermatic.org/mailman/listinfo/linuxbios
Re: Porting Linuxbios to Via P4m266A
On Wed, 2 Mar 2005 [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: I have written back asking for permission to disclose the contents without NDA. I have pointed out the benefits they are going to derive. Let's see how it goes. I have a feeling that they may allow disclosure without NDA. another option is to ask for permission to release code but not release the material. VIA has done that for me in the past. ron ___ Linuxbios mailing list Linuxbios@clustermatic.org http://www.clustermatic.org/mailman/listinfo/linuxbios
Re: Porting Linuxbios to Via P4m266A
On Tue, 1 Mar 2005, Bryan E. Chafy wrote: Although one gotcha would be anything that's timing related. Memory/IO access proxied through the serial port would also be orders of magnatude slower. When the DRAM test completes, we'll all be dead :) Also, rom bios code memory references would have to be excluded as well as anything that could upset the serial port. What about handling stuff like cpu/mmu state transitions (ie real mode to protected mode to unreal mode, etc)? Cache? Perhaps the proxied memory access could be limited to just a certain range (if known). My current understanding of how linuxbios works is very limited but, is there an absolute requirement that this should occur over a serial port? Best regards Peter K ___ Linuxbios mailing list Linuxbios@clustermatic.org http://www.clustermatic.org/mailman/listinfo/linuxbios
Re: Porting Linuxbios to Via P4m266A
Hi all, Just recieved the spec sheet for ProSavageDDR P4M266 VT8751 P4 DDR SMA North Bridge. Bad news is that I am not supposed to disclose it without permission (as per the Copyright notice). At this point I have recieved the manual without any NDA although the manual says Confidential NDA Required. I have written back asking for permission to disclose the contents without NDA. I have pointed out the benefits they are going to derive. Let's see how it goes. I have a feeling that they may allow disclosure without NDA. rgds jtd ___ Linuxbios mailing list Linuxbios@clustermatic.org http://www.clustermatic.org/mailman/listinfo/linuxbios
Re: Porting Linuxbios to Via P4m266A
On Thu, Feb 24, 2005 at 08:02:29AM -0700, Ronald G. Minnich wrote: On Thu, 24 Feb 2005 [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Any pointers? my mail archive does not throw up aything. it's complex. You have to compile the emulator with romcc, and then romcc uses the standard bios as the target. It would be a heroic hack! But, at the end, we would have the ability to run the fuctory BIOS from power-on under emulation and work out all the chip secrets. I think a two computer solution might be easier. If one can get early serial on the target machine, then a small romcc program could read commands from the serial port, execute them, and transmit back the results. (I think I even saw an email from someone that did this in pure assembler.) Then, a specially modified emulator could run the original bios on a second machine, forwarding memory reads/writes and io reads/writes through the serial port to the target machine. Thoughts? -Kevin ___ Linuxbios mailing list Linuxbios@clustermatic.org http://www.clustermatic.org/mailman/listinfo/linuxbios
Re: Porting Linuxbios to Via P4m266A
On Mon, 28 Feb 2005, Kevin O'Connor wrote: I think a two computer solution might be easier. If one can get early serial on the target machine, then a small romcc program could read commands from the serial port, execute them, and transmit back the results. (I think I even saw an email from someone that did this in pure assembler.) That is a *very* cool idea. Then, a specially modified emulator could run the original bios on a second machine, forwarding memory reads/writes and io reads/writes through the serial port to the target machine. I like it a lot. ron ___ Linuxbios mailing list Linuxbios@clustermatic.org http://www.clustermatic.org/mailman/listinfo/linuxbios
Re: Porting Linuxbios to Via P4m266A
On Tuesday 01 March 2005 05:42, Ronald G. Minnich wrote: On Mon, 28 Feb 2005, Kevin O'Connor wrote: I think a two computer solution might be easier. If one can get early serial on the target machine, then a small romcc program could read commands from the serial port, execute them, and transmit back the results. (I think I even saw an email from someone that did this in pure assembler.) That would be a neat universal solution. Ite8705 is the multio device on the P4M266. Linuxbios had code for it (just managed to download cvs from SF was down for three days and refused to login, - timeouts). That is a *very* cool idea. Then, a specially modified emulator could run the original bios on a second machine, forwarding memory reads/writes and io reads/writes through the serial port to the target machine. I like it a lot. ron So where to start. rgds jtd ___ Linuxbios mailing list Linuxbios@clustermatic.org http://www.clustermatic.org/mailman/listinfo/linuxbios
Re: Porting Linuxbios to Via P4m266A
I think a two computer solution might be easier. If one can get early serial on the target machine, then a small romcc program could read commands from the serial port, execute them, and transmit back the results. (I think I even saw an email from someone that did this in pure assembler.) Do you mean llshell? Then, a specially modified emulator could run the original bios on a second machine, forwarding memory reads/writes and io reads/writes through the serial port to the target machine. It should be possible to create a sort of emulator/redirector that executes most of the stock bios code in an emulator environment (say bochs), but redirects all in's, out's memory accesses to the target hardware via serial. (llshell on the target can already do this part). Eventually, youd end up with a trace of commands that init the ram among other things. Although one gotcha would be anything that's timing related. Memory/IO access proxied through the serial port would also be orders of magnatude slower. When the DRAM test completes, we'll all be dead :) Also, rom bios code memory references would have to be excluded as well as anything that could upset the serial port. What about handling stuff like cpu/mmu state transitions (ie real mode to protected mode to unreal mode, etc)? Cache? Perhaps the proxied memory access could be limited to just a certain range (if known). If you use llshell, note that the current version doesnt support amd's 64bit registers/addressing yet. p4/32bit is ok. ___ Linuxbios mailing list Linuxbios@clustermatic.org http://www.clustermatic.org/mailman/listinfo/linuxbios
Re: Porting Linuxbios to Via P4m266A
On Thu, 24 Feb 2005 [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Any pointers? my mail archive does not throw up aything. it's complex. You have to compile the emulator with romcc, and then romcc uses the standard bios as the target. It would be a heroic hack! But, at the end, we would have the ability to run the fuctory BIOS from power-on under emulation and work out all the chip secrets. ron ___ Linuxbios mailing list Linuxbios@clustermatic.org http://www.clustermatic.org/mailman/listinfo/linuxbios
Re: Porting Linuxbios to Via P4m266A
On Thu, 24 Feb 2005 [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Detection of size and speed?. Suppose we freeze on a particular ram type only for starters. good plan. I was hoping that by comparing some other similiar via chipset bios with this one I could probably make a guess (with plenty of hand holding from you guys) of important events. Then use that as a template to get things going. I am presuming that the current crop of devices wont be wildly different. It's worth a try, it sometimes works, sometimes fails to do it this way. I failed on the Intel 855GME but that was partly a lack-of-time issue. ron ___ Linuxbios mailing list Linuxbios@clustermatic.org http://www.clustermatic.org/mailman/listinfo/linuxbios
Re: Porting Linuxbios to Via P4m266A
On Tuesday 22 February 2005 22:09, Ronald G. Minnich wrote: I would love it if you could do that port. You need to get data from via on how the chips work. That is your first step. Argh!!. That would take forever if at all.Isnt there another way? Like simulator or gdb or reading up stuff from the kernel since that already works with the motherboard. rgds jtd ___ Linuxbios mailing list Linuxbios@clustermatic.org http://www.clustermatic.org/mailman/listinfo/linuxbios
Re: Porting Linuxbios to Via P4m266A
On Wed, 23 Feb 2005 [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: On Tuesday 22 February 2005 22:09, Ronald G. Minnich wrote: I would love it if you could do that port. You need to get data from via on how the chips work. That is your first step. Argh!!. That would take forever if at all.Isnt there another way? Like simulator or gdb or reading up stuff from the kernel since that already works with the motherboard. it's hardware and there is no other way. ron ___ Linuxbios mailing list Linuxbios@clustermatic.org http://www.clustermatic.org/mailman/listinfo/linuxbios
Re: Porting Linuxbios to Via P4m266A
Argh!!. That would take forever if at all.Isnt there another way? Like simulator or gdb or reading up stuff from the kernel since that already works with the motherboard. As a first step, yes. But you want dynamic detection of dram and other things. By looking at a picture you can't see which line was painted first and why. well if you are determined and/or have funding there might be two other ways. 1) I recall Ron describing rom-as-ram trick to get the emu86 running and get the memory setting this way. Slow as molasses I'm told. 2) get a pci debugger card. around $5k i think. can watch the pci traffic on it to see what it writes as ram config. It does not always work but when works it is pretty good. ___ Linuxbios mailing list Linuxbios@clustermatic.org http://www.clustermatic.org/mailman/listinfo/linuxbios
Re: Porting Linuxbios to Via P4m266A
On Wednesday 23 February 2005 18:32, Stefan Reinauer wrote: As a first step, yes. But you want dynamic detection of dram and Detection of size and speed?. Suppose we freeze on a particular ram type only for starters. other things. By looking at a picture you can't see which line was painted first and why. I was hoping that by comparing some other similiar via chipset bios with this one I could probably make a guess (with plenty of hand holding from you guys) of important events. Then use that as a template to get things going. I am presuming that the current crop of devices wont be wildly different. rgds jtd ___ Linuxbios mailing list Linuxbios@clustermatic.org http://www.clustermatic.org/mailman/listinfo/linuxbios
Re: Porting Linuxbios to Via P4m266A
On Wednesday 23 February 2005 23:37, Adam Sulmicki wrote: well if you are determined and/or have funding there might be two other ways. 1) I recall Ron describing rom-as-ram trick to get the emu86 running and get the memory setting this way. Slow as molasses I'm told. Any pointers? my mail archive does not throw up aything. 2) get a pci debugger card. around $5k i think. can watch the pci traffic on it to see what it writes as ram config. It does not always work but when works it is pretty good. Jeez. That is a whole lot of money. Perhaps a HP LA might do the job. I might be able to get hold of one. Or rig up a couple of PALs to snoop on the bus - presuming that the load dont screw up the timing. rgds jtd ___ Linuxbios mailing list Linuxbios@clustermatic.org http://www.clustermatic.org/mailman/listinfo/linuxbios
Porting Linuxbios to Via P4m266A
Hi all I ve been lurking on this list for some time. Has linuxbios been ported to the Via p4m266A mobo? (vt8633, vt8235, IT8705) If not can i do it?. Basically i would like to boot from a usb thumb drive (transcend 512Mb). The problem is that the bios recognizes the usb only as a floppy and if it is a dos fat16 partition. This makes grub and lilo unusable (unless i waste 16 mb on a dos partition). I am able to use syslinux though. here is what lspci says 00:00.0 Host bridge: VIA Technologies, Inc.: Unknown device 3148 00:01.0 PCI bridge: VIA Technologies, Inc. VT8633 [Apollo Pro266 AGP] 00:10.0 USB Controller: VIA Technologies, Inc. UHCI USB (rev 80) 00:10.1 USB Controller: VIA Technologies, Inc. UHCI USB (rev 80) 00:10.2 USB Controller: VIA Technologies, Inc. UHCI USB (rev 80) 00:10.3 USB Controller: VIA Technologies, Inc.: Unknown device 3104 (rev 82) 00:11.0 ISA bridge: VIA Technologies, Inc.: Unknown device 3177 00:11.1 IDE interface: VIA Technologies, Inc. Bus Master IDE (rev 06) 00:11.5 Multimedia audio controller: VIA Technologies, Inc. AC97 Audio Controller (rev 50) 00:12.0 Ethernet controller: VIA Technologies, Inc. Ethernet Controller (rev 74) 01:00.0 VGA compatible controller: S3 Inc.: Unknown device 8d04 attached output of lspci -v Btw I am good with a solder iron and do some work with microntrollers pcs and assorted hardware. rgds jtd p4m266a Description: Binary data
Re: Porting Linuxbios to Via P4m266A
I would love it if you could do that port. You need to get data from via on how the chips work. That is your first step. ron ___ Linuxbios mailing list Linuxbios@clustermatic.org http://www.clustermatic.org/mailman/listinfo/linuxbios
