[LinuxBIOS] Iwill DK8-HTX now runs under LinuxBIOS r2587 (Thanks)

[Ning (Michael) Qu]

Hi, Alexei

I must have made some mistake so I just read this email. Thanks for
your detailed help!!

And I have another problem now, I can't see anything by serial
console. My linuxbios version is 2587. And I can see the output when
filo take over the control. I have checked the baud rate and all are
set as 115200, and the same on the PC to monitor. Do you have such
kinds of experience? Is there anything special I need to set for
serial console? Thanks very much again!

Best,
Ning

On 4/25/07, Alexei I. Adamovich <lexa at adam.botik.ru> wrote:
> Hi, Ning!
>
> Sory for delay with replying--I haven't check my email box
> tommorow because of being too busy.
>
> Hope, you alredy got the system running, but anyway I'll comment the
> problems I had giving the LXBIOS running on my Iwill DK8_HTX box.
>
> 1. I needed to choose the payload
>
> I've chosen the etherboot, because only it can load the Linux kernel
> from SATA disks we have installed in the system.
>
> 2. I needed to get etherboot compiled
>
> I tried etherboot 5.4 (two variants) and had found that it has
> problems compiling for LinuxBIOS. So I got 5.2.6, as it was recomended
> in the tutorials.
>
> This one is not ready fo compiling on 64-bit Fedora core 4, so I got
> 32-bit linux box (Debian) to do the job.
>
> The right drivers for me were tg3--filo (not e1000--filo, it doesn't
> work)
>
> The AUTOBOOT line in the filo (old version embedded in the Etherboot
> should in my case be hde1:..., but not sda1, as I am
>
> 3. I needed to get LinuxBIOS compiled.
>
> This was done on 64-bit Fedora core running on the target platform
> (DK8_HTX).
>
> The changes I've done in the configuration are in one of my earliest
> postst to the LinuxBIOS list. There is one change there that is not
> mentioned in the tutorial--it gives the flashrom utility the ability to
> program ROM under LinuxBIOS-started Linux (got it from the December
> list messeges).
>
> The latest release that is able being compiled AFAIK is 2587.
>
> Some stage in the compilation process needed the intel IASL ACPI
> compiler. Did you get it? I've found that I am not able to compile
> iasl from the source with no handmade changes--since it wants
> an old version of Flex.
>
> So I got proper version of debian 32-bit iasl archive ( 20060912-3.2
> was good for me), and extracted the binary out of there, then
> copied it to the PATH on 64-bit box (runs with no problem).
>
> 4. I NEEDED TO PREPEND VGA BIOS TO LINUXBIOS ROM WITH CAT
>
> NOT APPEND, that takes me 2 days of struggling.
>
> The resulting image is 512KB.
>
> 5. Programmed ROM with flashrom utility included in the LinuxBIOS.
>
> 6. Rebooted and had to press the reset several times to get booted.
>
> Here after some previous problems with APPENDING the VGA bios to the
> linuxbios, I had serial console attached and running on my 32-bit box.
>
> After some period of euphoria I found on the serial console that I
> have only Fallback image being loaded each time I boot tha box.
>
> So I tried to study the problem.
>
> Looking to the lxbios output, I found the setting
>
>  boot_option = Fallback
>
> in the CMOS
>
> Changing it to Normal and reboot gives me the need to press
> the reset several times and got Fallback loaded
>
> So once more I changed the boot_option to "Normal"
>
> Looking at the other values I'v found that there are the
>
>       boot_first, boot_second, and boot_third
>
> CMOS options in the lxbios output.
>
> So I changed them to have the following lxbios output ("[lxb]" is
> citation prefix):
>
>  [lxb] boot_option = Normal
>  [lxb] last_boot = Fallback
>  [lxb] ECC_memory = Enable
>  [lxb] baud_rate = 1200
>  [lxb] hw_scrubber = Enable
>  [lxb] interleave_chip_selects = Enable
>  [lxb] max_mem_clock = 200Mhz
>  [lxb] dual_core = Disable
>  [lxb] power_on_after_fail = Disable
>  [lxb] debug_level = Spew
>  [lxb] boot_first = HDD
>  [lxb] boot_second = Fallback_HDD
>  [lxb] boot_third = Fallback_HDD
>  [lxb] boot_index = 0xf
>  [lxb] boot_countdown = 0x3
>  [lxb] slow_cpu = off
>  [lxb] nmi = Disable
>  [lxb] iommu = Disable
>  [lxb] lxbios: Can not read LinuxBIOS parameter user_data because layout info
>  [lxb] specifies CMOS area that is too wide.
>
> You can see the boot_first, boot_second and boot_third values there.
>
> Rebooting once more doesn't gives new result.
>
> Again, running under the Fallback image, I changed baud_rate CMOS
> value to "115200" (since I have my serial console set to run with
> 115200 baude rate.
>
> Rebooting once more, had output on Serial console With Normal image
> header, but the boot process hangs early after finding dram0 not
> usable.
>
> Again, after several resets, running under the Fallback image, I found
> that max_mem_clock CMOS value is set to 200Mhz (see above).
> Since I have DDR400 installed, I set max_mem_clock to "400Mhz".
>
> This time after changing boot_option to "Normal" anew (it resets to
> "Fallback" each time Fallback image is loaded), I got the result
> needed--now the box runs under Normal image with no problems.
>
> That's all the story :-)
>
> Hope it helps you if you still have problems.
>
> Best regards,
>
> Alexei I. Adamovich
>
> P.S. For swapping the flash ROM chips safely, I used the "ROM chip
> removal via super-glued push pins" idea presented on the linuxbios.org
> front page (in upper right page corner).  It was very helpful
> On Mon, Apr 23, 2007 at 11:48:48PM -0400, Ning (Michael) Qu wrote:
> > I have found how to use AMIdeco from
> > http://linuxbios.org/Tyan_S2882_Build_Tutorial#VGA_bios.
> > But I am still now sure the other problems I asked in my last email....
> >
> >On 4/23/07, Ning (Michael) Qu <quning at gmail.com> wrote:
> >> Hi, Alexei,
> >>
> >> Thanks for your posts on DK8-HTX. I am just starting working on this
> >> mainboard these two days. From what you said in your email, you modify
> >> several things I think, and most of them must be modified by lxbios, I
> >> try to summarize your work:
> >> 1 serial console baud_rate -> 115200
> >> 2 max_mem_clock -> 400MHz
> >> 3 boot_first ("HDD"), boot_second and boot_third ("Fallback_HDD").
> >> I am not sure how to achieve the third one. Is it also in cmos?
> >>
> >> And another question is that I don't know how to dd a 36K Video ROM as
> >> you said. Do you just enlarge the size of dd?
> >> such as this?
> >> dd if=/dev/mem of=vgabios.bin skip=1536 count=72
> >>
> >> Is that all the things you make LinuxBIOS run on DK8-HTX? Thanks for your help!
> >>
> >> Best
> >> Ning
>