[LinuxBIOS] LinuxBIOS support for nvidia CK804 northbridge?

[Carl-Daniel Hailfinger]

yhlu schrieb:
> I don't know what is the Superio in the MB...
> 
> the only problem maybe the memory man only support one dimm, (the
> current K8 code in the tree)

That wouldn't be such a big problem for me.

> Are you going to look at some opteron and ck804 based MB or Opteron
> and Serverworks MB?

Yes, opteron and ck804 based MBs are an option as long as they have
enough PCI-Express slots and don't cost a fortune. AFAIK Serverworks
based motherboards don't support PCIe.

However, right now I'm trying to find a reasonably cheap (as student
at an university I don't have too much money to spend) platform
for experiments which won't force me to re-do everything once I need
better performance or decide to establish a business in that area
after graduating. So spending ~300$ for a decent Athlon64/PCIe MB
combination is already at the upper end. Most Opteron MBs are above
300$ and then I still have to buy the processors.

Side note:
I think LinuxBIOS is very cool and will enable some really exciting
possibilities to use computers, faster booting being one of the
smaller aspects. Unfortunately the monetary entry barrier is quite
high right now for hobbyists. If we had 50$ MBs with support for
LinuxBIOS, there might be a lot more hackers able to contribute.
Of course contributing to LinuxBIOS needs a lot more skill than
for other projects, but some hackers will have that skill.

<dream>
The next time slashdot or some other site mentions LinuxBIOS,
people will be able to download image files for all modern MBs,
flash them and be proud like iPod owners.
Tuning freaks will notice that BIOS initialization can be done in
3 seconds instead of 30 and will want to use LinuxBIOS, too.
Instant-on will get a whole new meaning where people complain that
their cellphones boot slower than their desktops.
Suspend-to-{Disk,RAM} will work out of the box because the BIOS
does the right thing (tm).
Security-aware admins can be sure there are no more generic BIOS
passwords/backdoors.
Multiple vendors will start to ship boards with LinuxBIOS at the
same price as boards with proprietary BIOS.
High-end audio professionals will admire the fact that there are
no SMM traps killing their low latency requirements.
High-end storage servers will be able boot directly from Linux
RAID devices even if some of the disks have failed.
Some board manufacturers will switch completely to LinuxBIOS,
saving a load of money on proprietary BIOS.
</dream>


Regards,
Carl-Daniel