[LinuxBIOS] [patch 0/4] AMD Geode LX support for LinuxBIOS

Marc Jones marc.jones at amd.com
Wed May 2 02:10:54 CEST 2007


Uwe,
See my answers below.

Uwe Hermann wrote:
> Hi Marc!
> 
> On Tue, May 01, 2007 at 04:48:27PM -0600, Marc Jones wrote:
>> Hello LinuxBIOS Community,
>>
>> My name is Marc Jones and I work for the AMD embedded group. Jordan
>> Crouse and I have been working with Ron Minnich on a Geode LX LinuxBIOS
>> implementation for the AMD Norwich development platform.
> 
> This is great news! Thanks a lot for your work!
>

You are welcome.

>  
>> Our implementation has been split into four patches: cpu, northbridge,
>> southbridge, and mainboard. All four are required to build the Norwich
>> platform. Ron and I expect this to break the current OLPC mainboards. We
>> will work on fixing then soon (Note that OLPC went from GX to LX so an
>> update was required regardless).
> 
> The LX-based OLPC should become another subdirectory of olpc/, just like
> rev_a and btest, right? I'd rather not touch the existing directories if
> the changes are that massive. This way we wouldn't break any targets
> (just add a new one), correct?

This will break the olpc targets but they were already suffering from 
bitrot in the division of northbridge and chipset code. Ron and I agreed 
to move ahead and to bring them up to speed when we can. The priority 
will be the LX version since the rev a/b are already out of date and 
will not see production.

> 
>> In addition to the patches you will need the Geode LX VSA binary that is
>> located here:
>>
>> http://www.amd.com/files/connectivitysolutions/geode/geode_lx/lx_vsa.36k.bin.gz
> 
> Where's the source code? SCNR :)
> 
> I assume the source is not publically available? That would sure be
> great! If not, what exact usage rights come with the binary?
> 

The VSA binary source is LGPL and is available at: 
http://dev.laptop.org/git.do?p=geode-vsa
This is just a temporary home until we can port it to open source/linux 
tools and find the code a home. It currently builds with Microsoft MASM 
and C. We are trying to move to GCC. We post the binary since most OSD 
can't build it.

> Also, is the VSA binary needed for _any_ LinuxBIOS usage on the LX, or
> just to enable certain features? In other words, can we do _anything_
> with the LX without the VSA binary?

VSA is not required. An example is the OLPC Open Firmware + custom Linux 
image.

> 
> 
> Uwe.


Marc

-- 
Marc Jones
Senior Software Engineer
(970) 226-9684 Office
mailto:Marc.Jones at amd.com
http://www.amd.com/embeddedprocessors






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