Hello, all. I'm happy to announce that today I had a first grub able to load linux while playing a role of firmware. It's possible that some of peripherals aren't inited but I have a working desktop in linux BEWARE: it's alpha Few advantages: -Modularity. Put in flash what you want in flash. -Flexibility. You can embed a script in flash image. -Filesystem and Partition tables support. With it you can load kernels from e.g. lvm, gpt, zfs, xfs, ufs,... -Serial port support. You can have a console on serial port in addition or instead of keyboard+screen. Default is to use only grpahic console. If it's asked often enough it can be changed to default double console -Most of features available with x86 grub are available on yeeloong too.
ToDos (you can ask for more precise status on those items if you're interested or want to volunteer): -Currently grub has no flasher. So when grub is in flash one can't use it to flash something else from it (but flashrom from OS should be usable). Possible solutions: -- Convince pmon guys to drop advertisement clause from relevant files, then it can be ported to grub -- Port flashrom. Only part of it is license compatible but it seems like that part is all we want -- Flash from OS with flashrom. -Add NVRAM support. -Add compression. -Optimise video for 16-bit screen -UDMA support for faster kernel loading. -USB support -Network support How to obtain. It's available as a bzr checkout from: http://bzr.savannah.gnu.org/r/grub/people/phcoder/yeeloong-fw/ Prerequisites: automake, ruby, autoconf, python, gcc, bison Compilation: ./configure make ./grub-mkimage -O yeeloong_flash -o grub.img -d . sh normal linux minicmd part_msdos ata ext2 reboot halt serial before you proceed further be sure to have a way to restore your flash. I recommend having a separate PLCC chip with working pmon and hot-swapping technique. If you don't understand the last sentence please do NOT proceed. DISCLAIMER: NO WARRANTY of whatever damage would occur to your computer Then in pmon: load -r -f bfc00000 <path to>/grub.img -- Regards Vladimir 'φ-coder/phcoder' Serbinenko
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