[LinuxBIOS] Fwd: Could original VGA BIOS be responsible for long timeout before LinuxBIOS kicks in?

[Coquelicot]

On Nov 21, 2007 7:46 PM, Uwe Hermann <uwe at hermann-uwe.de> wrote:

>
> On Tue, Nov 20, 2007 at 08:00:14PM -0500, Corey Osgood wrote:
> > On 11/20/07, Coquelicot <coquelicot408 at gmail.com> wrote:
> > >
> > > Hi all,
> > >
> > > what can be responsible for long delay before starting LinuxBIOS? I
> > > have it on VIA EPIA M-II with LB preppended by original VGA bios
> > > extracted from the original BIOS. The delay is ~20 seconds before I
> > > get first message on serial console (..."In auto.c:main()" messages).
> > >
> > > Correct me if I am wrong: do I need VGA BIOS at all? I want my booting
>
> No. On a head-less server for example, you usually don't care about VGA,
> and you can easily leave it away (no VGA blob to prepend to linuxbios.rom).
>
> Disable VGA support in LinuxBIOS with CONFIG_CONSOLE_VGA=0 in Options.lb.
>

What about a carputer which need to be able to display graphics (X or
DirectFB)? can I skip the VGA bios in such setup altogether? I'm
talking about VIA EPIA M-II so I am not sure if two LB "drivers" you
mention below (RageXL and GeoDE) can work?

>
>
> > > Linux kernel to use framebuffer but I guess that original VGA BIOS is
> > > not really needed for that, just to be able to "control" LB/FILO from
> > > the local console, right?
>
> Depends. LinuxBIOS itself has (AFAIK) two "drivers" which can enable
> graphics without executing any VGA blob, one for RageXL and one for
> Geode GX1.
>
> I'm not sure if the Linux framebuffer drivers depend on a VGA blob which
> has to be executed before they work. Most probably do, but maybe not all.
>
>
>
> > If I had to guess, I'd say your problem is not with the VGA bios, but with
> > ram that doesn't work quite right with the current code for the cle266. Can
>
> Yep, possible. I've seen the same effect on a box, but I can't really
> explain it. It happens _before_ the UART init, i.e. before the first
> byte of debugging output can be sent, and way before RAM init, though.
> Haven't looked further into it.
>
>
>
> > you try a different ram stick (of a different size/timings) and see if you
> > get the same results?
>

Thanks for the tip, I will try to find some other memory to test...


-- 
Lukasz