[LinuxBIOS] Developer Docs

[Corey Osgood]

joe at smittys.pointclark.net wrote:
> Hello,
> I would like to make a suggestion. I am a newbie to the LinuxBios  
> world. I love what I have seen so far. I am ok at C, know a little  
> assembly, and would love to contribute to the LinuxBios community. But  
> I am not sure how to get started. I have read just about everything I  
> can get my hands on, but how do I go about developing a new bios for a  
> board? In the FAQ's it talks about some things I would need to get  
> started but where do I go from there. I have datasheets and all kinds  
> of output from linux (dmidecode, lspci, etc.), POST card. Now what?
> Do I just use the code from another board and alter it to my liking? I  
> don't want to sound negative or upset anyone but I think alot more  
> people would get involved if there was more developer (src)  
> documentation. So, I am going to try to document my journey from point  
> A to B. So the next person that comes along won't be as stumped?? Make  
> sense or is it just me? Can someone tell me where I need to go from  
> here?
> 
> Thanks - Joe
> 

My 2 cents, for what they're worth: grab something similar to what
you're looking at's source code, and the docs for it if you can, and
learn how it works (if you have a system you can play with it on also,
it's that much better). Then try to do the same thing, with your chips.
There are a few to avoid, such as (for the moment) i440bx, but most of
the chipsets do work. If you want an SDRAM northbridge that works and
you can get docs for, look at the via vt8601, and grab the docs from
here: http://rom.by/doki/VIA/8601A_Apollo_PLE133.rar. Either that, or
the intel e7501 has some very clean and well documented code, but you'd
have to find the docs on it (afaik, that's what uwe based his raminit.c
on for 440bx).

The docs on LBv2 are very sparse (this is a known issue), so that's
really the only way to go, even most of the build docs are for LBv1 (or
freebios, even). LBv3 hopefully won't have these issues, so it should
make things easier on everyone and hopefully get some more developers
who know what they're doing (unlike me :-p) on board. Oh yeah, and
welcome to the list!

-Corey