[LinuxBIOS] [RFC] Call for Action: LinuxBIOS foundations

[Rasmus Wiman]

Peter Stuge <peter at stuge.se> wrote:

> On Thu, Aug 30, 2007 at 12:28:23AM +0200, Rasmus Wiman wrote:
> > when I can afford it, I will buy a new MB with integrated vga,
> > probably the one I think stands the best chance of getting
> > supported. Right now I think that would mean NVidia or VIA, but
> > I know rather little about it.
> 
> Aha! I think there is a slight misunderstanding.
> 
> "Integrated" graphics are not really any different from discrete
> graphics as far as LB is concerned. Neither better nor worse.

Sounds good. I was thinking that memory initalisation might be somehow
diferent when the graphics hardware wants some of the memory.

> There are two graphics chips supported natively in LB, they are the
> ATI Rage XL and the Trident Blade3d. I've only heard the former
> confirmed working.

Didn't even know LB has that kind of support for any graphics chip. I
only knew about the CONFIG_PCI_ROM_RUN and (if needed ) extracting the
vga bios from the stock bios approach. By the way, at least Rage XL
(with its own memory) seems pretty common on server mainboards.Is it a
coincidence that just that chip is supported? 

> > But my main motivation is that if there was a MB with a "Works with
> > linuxbios" sticker on it, and it didn't cost too much I'd buy it.
> 
> I'll say M57SLI.

That was my first thought too. Or another MCP55 card. Then I started
wondering if I could help put that sticker on more cards. That's when I
started wondering if the nforce 430 with built-in Geforce would be very
different from the mcp55, or the k8m800 would be very different from
the epia chipsets.

/Rasmus