[LinuxBIOS] supermicro/h8dmr port, vga

[Patrick McMurchie]

Hi all,

I have a few questions about the supermicro/h8dmr linuxBIOS port in
specific, and the process for enabling vga support in general. Apologies
if these questions are too noobish in nature.

I can successfully extract the VGA ROM from a supermicro h8dmr-i2 using
either /dev/mem with offsets obtained from /proc/iomem, or via amideco.
Both methods yield files of the same size, but diff reports a
difference. Since I wasn't sure about which one to use. I've alternately
prepended both images to an appropriate linuxbios.rom. Regardless of
which VGA ROM is used, the machine fails to boot (fans spin up for a
moment, then stop, no serial or vga output) after I flash the resultant
image. When configured to use serial console, without the VGA ROM, the
system boots and works as expected.

Something I've been wondering about is the "option ROM_SIZE" entry in
the target's Config.lb: The VGA ROM is 44kB, and the SST Flash chip is
1024kB, but when I set ROM_SIZE to (1024*1024)-(44*1024) or 1003520, the
final concatenated ROM weighs in at 1020kB, which flashrom will refuse
to write. If instead I pad ROM_SIZE by 4kB, making it 1007616, I get a
1MB which flashrom will accept. Am I doing something silly here, or has
anyone else seen this behavior?

Per the VGA Howto, I've un-commented the appropriate device section in
src/mainboard/supermicro/h8dmr/Config.lb, and enabled both
CONFIG_CONSOLE_VGA and CONFIG_PCI_ROM_RUN in the target's Config.lb.

Any help is greatly appreciated, thanks, 
Patrick.