Questions about LinuxBIOS

[David Hendricks]

My apologies for the spam, looks like I forgot to tell Sylpheed to word
wrap before sending a message. I hope this proves to be more readable,
otherwise I'll have to RTFM :(

On Thu, 13 Nov 2003 17:12:13 +1000
Adam Nielsen <a.nielsen at optushome.com.au> wrote:
> Since none of the boards have on-board networking, I'd really like to
> use LinuxBIOS to enable them to boot Linux over the network with a
> standard PCI network card - it seems possible, but there doesn't seem
> to be anywhere that gives a definite 'yes' to this with standard PC
> hardware.

Yes. A variety of NICs can be used with Etherboot as your payload. Get
etherboot, go into the src directory, make allelfs, and use the
appropriate elf or bzipped elf (zelf) as your LinuxBIOS payload.

On Thu, 13 Nov 2003 17:12:13 +1000
Adam Nielsen <a.nielsen at optushome.com.au> wrote:
> Once LinuxBIOS is compiled and ready to go, Is it possible to flash it
> into the board's existing BIOS?  (Without any hardware modifications,
> ZIF sockets, etc.)

Yes, but you'll lose your original BIOS. And since nothing is quite
foolproof, it would be unwise to risk permanently losing your original
BIOS. Unless you have another mainboard with a compatible ROM socket
that you can use to recover your old BIOS in case LinuxBIOS fails, I
would highly recommend that you get a BIOS Savior or a backup flash part
before proceding.

On Thu, 13 Nov 2003 17:12:13 +1000
Adam Nielsen <a.nielsen at optushome.com.au> wrote:
> One of the motherboards has a recovery jumper which can be used to
> reflash the BIOS if there was a problem during a flash operation, do
> you think this could be used as a backup option in case something goes
> wrong with LinuxBIOS?  (yes, I'm aware of all the dangers etc., but
> the boards only cost me $1 each so I'm not too worried if I render
> them unusable, it'll just be a bit of a waste...)

No, the recovery jumper will program some factory presets into a factory
BIOS. It does not act as a recovery BIOS. 

On Thu, 13 Nov 2003 17:12:13 +1000
Adam Nielsen <a.nielsen at optushome.com.au> wrote:
> The reason I ask is that the flash chip on one of the boards is
> soldered on and physically very small.

Oh, then disregard what I said about getting a backup. Unless you switch
projects and get a board with a removable ROM, of course :)

On Thu, 13 Nov 2003 17:12:13 +1000
Adam Nielsen <a.nielsen at optushome.com.au> wrote:
> I did get hold of a BIOS upgrade for it though, 
> and the BIOS code itself appears to be supplied as four 64K files - is
> this large enough?

LinuxBIOS will usually fit in a quarter meg ROM. 

Can you provide some more details about this specific board? Knowing the
north/south bridge chipset would be most helpful in case Ron has easy
answers for you.