[coreboot] [RFC] Netbook Support

[Corey Osgood]

On Fri, Dec 12, 2008 at 7:36 PM, bari <bari at onelabs.com> wrote:

> coreboot support for netbooks has come back up again.
>
> The VIA vx700 and vx800 chipsets have recently become popular in many
> netbook designs. Most of these netbooks are being produced by Quanta for
> several different OEM's.
>
> VIA has recently released open documentation for the vx700 and vx800
> chipsets at the VIA Download Portal:
> http://linux.via.com.tw/support/downloadFiles.action
>
> and open documentation for the latest Unichrome graphics controllers:
> http://www.x.org/docs/via/
>
> VIA has also released a binary unichrome driver for ubuntu 8.04 and 8.10
>
> VIA is currently developing coreboot support for the vx800 chipset. Release
> should be along very soon!
>
> openChrome support is also in the works for many new chipsets including the
> vx700 and vx800:
> http://www.openchrome.org/
>
> The openChrome developers can also use lots of help.
> irc.freenode.net #unichrome
>
> The remaining issue with supporting these and other similar netbooks is
> open firmware support for the Embedded Controller (EC). The most common EC's
> in these netbooks are the KB9110 or KB3886 from ENE Technology. The ENE EC's
> are 8051 based and are used to support keyboard scan, lid open/closed,
> battery charging, power management, etc.
>
> There are also several AMD 690/600 laptops still available that may be
> candidates as well.
>
> Let see what we can do to get this working!
>
> For a list of netbook candidates and progress updates:
> http://www.coreboot.org/Laptop


Probably the best place to start would be here:
http://via.com.tw/en/products/notebook/notebook.jsp
Find out if any of the manufacturers want to help out, if they'd be willing
to provide hardware, and most importantly if they use a removable flash
chip. I doubt any of them do, but it would really help things out if they
did. IMO, the most likely ones to help would be ones that are already
shipping linux by default, since it'd be a free upgrade for their users with
almost no effort and minimal cost on their behalf. BTW, CN700 in v3 is
coming along nicely, with enough commented code memtest86 runs, and I'm
hoping to have linux at least attempting to boot this weekend. A nettop in
v3 would be awesome :D

-Corey
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