[coreboot] VSA and vm86/x86emu

[Carl-Daniel Hailfinger]

Ron? This one would benefit from your testing and acking as well.

On 19.02.2008 22:38, Marc Jones wrote:
> Carl-Daniel Hailfinger wrote:
>> On 18.02.2008 23:55, Marc Jones wrote:
>>> Carl-Daniel Hailfinger wrote:
>>>> it seems that executing VSA requires vm86 to be useful. Since we
>>>> unconditionally execute the VSA, we should unconditionally require 
>>>> vm86
>>>> support (PCI_OPTION_ROM_RUN_VM86) via Kconfig for Geode targets. Not
>>>> doing so will either cause compile failures or runtime failures.
>>>>
>>>> Adding
>>>> select PCI_OPTION_ROM_RUN_VM86
>>>> below
>>>> config CPU_AMD_GEODELX
>>>> did not work out for me.
>>> Sorry I missed this.
>>>
>>> VSA requires the GDT that is in vm86.c. VSA loads similar to an 
>>> option ROM so the loader does go into VM86 mode. All the other stuff 
>>> like interrupt support and PCI BIOS isn't needed by VSA. I think 
>>> that the GDT at the top of vm86.c can be moved to a header file, 
>>> gdt.h or something like that.
>>
>> northbridge/amd/geodelx/vsmsetup.c uses 
>> util/x86emu/vm86.c:setup_realmode_idt() but it seems most/all of the 
>> setup there is not needed at all for VSA. Pulling in 
>> setup_realmode_idt pulls in the rest of vm86 through direct and 
>> indirect dependencies.
>>
>>> Care to make a patch? :)
>>
>
> I am also leaning towards removing the IDT for VSA init. There is a 
> risk if either an exception happens or a software interrupt is used 
> you will get unexpected results. What probably happens is that you 
> jump off to something that will eventually cause a triple fault and 
> reboot. You may think this is bad (and it is) but it is the same risk 
> that coreboot runs today. If coreboot had a generic IDT to handle 
> exceptions, VSA init would use the same IDT. Note that hardware INT 
> (even timers) should never happen as they are always masked.
>
> I have built with no PCI_OPTION_ROM_RUN_VM86 and run this to filo.

Nice. The unrelated change in util/x86emu/pcbios/pcibios.c has already 
been committed in r612, but I really think we want this patch.

Short description of which test we need: Compilation for alix1c with 
"Execute PCI Option ROMs" set to "Disabled". Boot into Linux and test 
whether everything works.

Regards,
Carl-Daniel

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