[coreboot] SeaBIOS and the Geode LX framebuffer

[Kevin O'Connor]

On Fri, Oct 03, 2008 at 02:16:27PM +0200, Stefan Reinauer wrote:
> Carl-Daniel Hailfinger wrote:
> > You'd need a VGA emulation VSA and AFAIK that piece of software is not
> > available as open source due to an interesting rights situation.
> >   
> Alternatively you could build a VGA option rom that initializes VGA on
> the Geode. The hardware dependent code is in libpayload already. It just
> needs to be integrated in something like "vgabios"
> 
> http://www.nongnu.org/vgabios/

Just a random note - I think it should be possible to port the above
"vgabios" project from bcc to gcc - similar to how SeaBIOS was ported.
The gcc compiler produces much better code than bcc (even after all
the 32bit prefixes are added), and a port to gcc should make adding
chip specific functions much easier.

I'm not an expert on VGA, but I think it may be possible to implement
a bare bones vgabios with only a couple of chip specific functions
(eg, initialization and mode switching).  Given the recent
availability of specs from AMD and Via, there is a possibility that on
board VGA could be completely handled with open source code.

Any interest?
-Kevin