[LinuxBIOS] USB Support <WAS Re: Accessibility of LinuxBios>

[Ronald G Minnich]

Stefan Reinauer wrote:
> * Ronald G Minnich <rminnich at lanl.gov> [060703 16:07]:
> 
>>Bari Ari wrote:
>>
>>
>>>We are currently working on mainboard designs that will not have any 
>>>serial ports with chipsets that don't have any serial ports. What did we 
>>>decide to do with LinuxBIOS, since the future is now?
>>
>>I would most rather do what we're doing on OLPC: linux in flash, since 
>>linux works well with usb.
> 
> 
> No doubt. 
> 
> But it does not solve the solution of the "how do we do ram
> bringup without serial interface", so we need to think of something in
> this area.
> 
> * HDT / JTAG 

best.

> * dumb buffer free usb serial support

yes, but ... how hard is that? From what I have seen, hard, but I guess 
we have to do it.

The problem with usb serial is that so much has to work correctly before 
it will work at all. IIRC some of the dongles require you to download a 
program into them before the work. Once we lose serial, we lost the 
ability to put out diag info with a simple outb to a port. We have to 
partake of the USB train wreck to get anything out at all.

ron