[coreboot] [RFC] Netbook Support

[Corey Osgood]

On Sat, Dec 13, 2008 at 9:38 PM, Richard Smith <smithbone at gmail.com> wrote:

> Carl-Daniel Hailfinger wrote:
>
>
>> There's also the interesting question about who owns the EC firmware. If
>> the manufacturer owns it and has full rights for it, the situation is
>> different compared to the BIOS. For example, Quanta (OLPC manufacturer)
>> holds some (if not all) rights to the OLPC XO EC code and not BIOS
>> vendor was involved.
>>
>
> The bulk of the Copyright is by EnE.  There are a handful of files that are
> Quanta only.  I would not expect many of these in a mainstream
> implementation as they deal with some of the extra stuff we did at OLPC.
>  Quanta has mentioned to me many times that they don't do anywhere near that
> level of work for a normal laptop.
>
> EnE provides a framework and the OEM fills in the blanks.
>
>   From what I have heard, I think the VIA processors are
>>> the best bet right now for experimentation.  Intel of course, is out,
>>> and AMD processors aren't in any netbooks to speak of - and I'm sure
>>> if we go to this effort, we would rather have it pay off for a netbook
>>> rather then a dinosaur laptop.
>>>
>>
>> If I'm right about EC code copyrights and usage rights, a cooperating
>> manufacturer could easily tell us about the interface for their EC code.
>>
>
> The interfaces themselves and the meanings are mostly described by ACPI.
>  There's an interesting thread on a while back lmkl about data sent to port
> 80 actually being commands to the EC.
>
> But for the parts that are not if I tell you command 0xAA is a private
> command and it toggles Port A IO bit n which controls xyx I may be telling
> you information that only lives in a schematic covered by an NDA.  Its
> tricky.  The legal clearance to release that info my fall back onto who owns
> the design IP rather than who the mfg is and could be hard to get.  Doesn't
> hurt to ask though.
>
> I agree with Jordan however that coreboot may not even need to interact
> with the EC at all.  Just taking the stock stuff and embedding it in your
> image at the right place might Just Work for the things coreboot needs.  The
> rest is all OS issues.
>
> Do any of those netbooks previously ship with Linux?


Yes, the Sylvania G netbook (
http://www.compusa.com/applications/SearchTools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=3747065&CatId=4198)
and Everex Cloudbook (
http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/SearchTools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=4171694&CatId=4185)
both ship with gOS and sell for <$300.

-Corey
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