[LinuxBIOS] Please explain why is some hardware not supported even though it runs fine in linux

[Stefan Reinauer]

* Al Boldi <a1426z at gawab.com> [070309 14:25]:
> Are the datasheets enough to get the board supported by LinuxBIOS?
> 
> If so, which board has been supported by only relying on the datasheets?
 
This depends on the data sheets. The AMD64 (AMD8111/AMD8131) port has
completely been developed from publicly available data sheets (including
the publically available bios and kernel developers guide).

Very often, there are no publically available data sheets, or the
publically available versions are censored and do not contain the
required information to write a BIOS/Firmware. This is the case for
basically all modern Intel chipsets.

> Also, the factory bios contains a lot of ram timing info; can't this
> be used to get a generic/blind LinuxBIOS to init ram, and then payload
> from flash?
 
The ram timing info is stored on the RAM modules themselfes, in a small
chip called SPD-ROM (Serial Presence Detect). The BIOS has to look at
each single RAM module and find out a common denominator that works with
all modules used in the system.
 
Stefan

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