[LinuxBIOS] emulator PIT setup

Marc Jones marc.jones at amd.com
Mon Oct 8 19:01:03 CEST 2007



Tom Sylla wrote:
> Many moons ago I had a problem with an XGI VGA option ROM in the emulator:
> 
> http://www.linuxbios.org/pipermail/linuxbios/2006-December/017568.html
> 
> I poked at it again this week, and found that my PIT was not set up on
> my platform, so port 61 was not ticking, and the delay routines in the
> option ROM were getting stuck.
> 
> It looks like the emulator attempts to set up something in the PIT:
> http://tracker.linuxbios.org/trac/LinuxBIOS/browser/trunk/LinuxBIOSv2/src/devices/emulator/biosemu.c#L301
> 
> but that is timer 0, which is for the timer tick, not the refresh
> timer (port 61).
> 
> To fix my problem, I just added LX's PIT counter 1 init I/Os:
> 
> http://tracker.linuxbios.org/trac/LinuxBIOS/browser/trunk/LinuxBIOSv2/src/cpu/amd/model_lx/syspreinit.c#L32
> 
> before the Counter 0 code, and the XGI ROM then loaded ok.
> 
> My first question is about the current PIT code in the emulator. What
> is it trying to do? Is it supposed to be turning on counter 1, and
> just broken? Or is it really meant to be enabling the timer tick?
> 
> The next question is where would be a good place for the Counter 1
> init? It seems like it should be done generically in LB for any SB
> with a PIT.
> 


I agree with Tom. The PIT should be setup by linuxbios for x86 systems. 
I can't think of an x86 that doesn't have a PIT. I don't see a good 
generic place to put this. PIT init should go in early init so that it 
can be used for timing loops.

Thoughts?
Marc

-- 
Marc Jones
Senior Firmware Engineer
(970) 226-9684 Office
mailto:Marc.Jones at amd.com
http://www.amd.com/embeddedprocessors






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