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<font size="2"><p>> On Thu, Dec 20, 2007 at 02:52:31PM +0100, Lars Randers wrote:<p>> > I've been dabbling with this board and the writeups for <p>> about a week <p>> > to little avail, so I'd like to hear from anyone who have <p>> this board <p>> > running stable with LB, and preferably with VGA enabled.<p>> <p>> I have a 6k which was fairly stable with VGA until the <p>> capacitors blew, but I did not use all features on the board.<p>> <p>> <p>> > I can't seem to build the bios successfully with the <p>> > Config.vga.filo.lb configs.<p>> <p>> Hm, I also seem to recall that the sample config didn't work. <p>> But I think it was fairly easy to sort out. What errors do <p>> you encounter?<p>> <p><br />/root/LinuxBIOSv2/src/mainboard/via/epia-m/auto.c -o auto.inc<p>earlymtrr.c:23.0:<p>"XIP_ROM_BASE is not a multiple of XIP_ROM_SIZE"<p>make[1]: *** [auto.inc] Error 1<p>make[1]: Leaving directory <p>`/root/LinuxBIOSv2/targets/via/epia-m/epia-m/normal'<p>make: *** [normal/linuxbios.rom] Error 1<p><br />> <p>> > I have also been investigating spurrious interrupts with <p>> the CF slot <p>> > when running Linux (Centos 4.5 - 2.6.9 kernel)<p>> <p>> This is a hardware problem with the Ricoh chip.<p>> <p><br />Can the interrupt be disabled BIOS wise or simply safely ignored?<p><br />> <p>> > and the strange LAN lockup, which seems to be related to a <p>> DMA issue <p>> > in the southbridge chip.<p>> <p>> AFAIK this is also a hardware problem.<p>> <p><br />So it's not possible to make a BIOS fix, workaround, disable DMA completely?<p><br />> <p>> > Should I just trash the board and look for a more stable platform?<p>> <p>> If you have options, that may not be a bad idea.<p>> <p>> <p>> > It's a nice platform, low power and all, but if it's <p>> hopelessly flawed <p>> > in design it's out. Any input on the issue welcome!<p>> <p>> What other boards are your candidates?<p>> <p><br />Well it's a board I had lying around from an earlier attempt at making<p>a PVR. I think I had happily forgotten all about my woes with it :)<p>The current project is for a Trixbox PBX that I want to move out of my<p>Vmware environment because of sound tearing, how ever I want a diskless<p>solution as the Vmware server is more than capable of supplying storage<p>over NFS.<p><br />> <p>> > Furthermore I'm struggeling to get the Linux kernel to boot through <p>> > the initrd without ending up in a panic. I know it's not a <p>> LB issue, <p>> > but as I said, I'd like to get in contact with anyone who has any <p>> > knowledge into the problem.<p>> <p>> I don't like initrds much. As it stands you will need one <p>> solely for the purpose of resetting the Ricoh chip, but I <p>> would prefer to hack those few lines of code into FILO <p>> instead, so that the initrd can be skipped.<p>> <p><br />If we could get some code into FILO or the BIOS to somehow trick<p>the Linux kernel into thinking it's looking at a genuine IDE port<p>i.e. find a /dev/hda instead of the Ricoh chip, I'd be thrilled.<p>That would solve my initrd woes at the same time.<p><br />> <p>> > The wiki is incomplete in this respect and I certainly <p>> wouldn't mind <p>> > donating some of my time in return updating it if I could get it <p>> > working.<p>> <p>> Well, you should be able to find other pages about how to <p>> make an initrd. It will also very greatly with distributions, <p>> which makes generic advice somewhat difficult to produce.<p>> <p>> Why do you want the initrd in the first place? :) Is it some <p>> other reason than resetcf?<p>> <p><br />Well since the stock kernel is modular built, I need the initrd for loading<p>the hardware modules for the pcmcia / yenta as well as the ext3 fs stuff.<p>The hardest part seems to be getting cardmgr to run from inside the nash<p>script runner. I'm getting a strange select(): bad file descriptor error from it.<p>The funny thing is that if I force nash out into a shell the command works<br />from there, it's just a bit selfdefeating to do it that way...<br />It's frustrating to feel one is so close to making it work but still no luck.<p>I have attempted to recompile the stock kernel from source, but after patching<p>it up using the CentOS buildenvironment it just fails compilation miserably.<p>I have succeeded in compiling the bleeding edge 2.6.23.9 kernel with root_on_nfs,<p>but it corrupts the target fs badly, so I'd like to stay with 2.6.9.<p><br />> <p>> //Peter<br /></font>
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