[coreboot] Thin Client Compaq Evo T20

Juergen Beisert juergen127 at kreuzholzen.de
Fri May 23 10:37:08 CEST 2008


On Friday 23 May 2008 09:19, Markus wrote:
> Am Thu, 22 May 2008 23:58:35 -0700
>
> schrieb Philip Loewen <philip at tidepool.ca>:
> > A quick follow-up question on this Geode GX1/CS5530 thin
> > client before another lengthy silence:
> >
> > Right now I only know how to access the 48M of onboard flash
> > memory in this little box using the proprietary tools that
> > run in the proprietary BIOS. If I replace the BIOS with
> > coreboot, I will need some other way to access the NAND
> > flash memory. Is there a known working method for this that
> > runs on Linux? (I have tried adding support for Memory
> > Technology Devices to my kernel, but don't know how to tell
> > if they are working.) Given this, I would be willing to give
> > coreboot a try.
> >
> > Last week I said I was reluctant to open the case of my thin
> > client. At the time I did not realize that a running thin
> > client can itself be used as a BIOS-ROM programmer. I have
> > extra copies of the machine around, so in fact I do have the
> > hardware resources needed to recover completely from a bad
> > flash experience. Now I am more receptive to the idea of
> > trying something that is not fully guaranteed.
> >
> > Thanks, Philip
>
> On my Evo T30 the internal flash works as an hda Disk. The only bad
> thing on this. The fist partition is needed from the proprietary Bios.
> Are you able to boot an Linux and take a look?

This kind of NAND devices (DiskOnChip in my box) provides a simple BIOS 
extension. They hook themselves into the boot interrupt of a proprietary 
BIOS. So they can emulate a harddisk to boot from. IMHO for coreboot we need 
a different solution.

Juergen




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