[coreboot] Dell Latitude D820

Stefan Reinauer stefan.reinauer at coreboot.org
Wed Apr 20 21:07:26 CEST 2011


* Philippe LeCavalier <support at plecavalier.com> [110420 15:07]:
> Excerpts from Stefan Reinauer's message of Tue Apr 19 21:30:35 -0400 2011:
> > * Philippe LeCavalier <support at plecavalier.com> [110419 20:22]:
> [..] 
> > If your BIOS works for you, you should consider keeping it. 
> > 
> > Porting coreboot to a new mainboard is a significant effort and you will
> > have to make sure you have ways to recover from failure (i.e. get your
> > external flash writer and/or soldering iron ready)
> hm. I see. I was hoping the worst case would be flashing it back to the
> original BIOS. A soldering gun is a bit extreme considering my current
> setup works just fine.

Yes, the worst case is flashing back the original BIOS. However, you
might have to do that without the system booting - at all.

> To ensure I fully comprehend the risk here...Backing up the BIOS isn't
> my insurance policy; I'd actually have to replace the chip? Once I've
> got a clear understanding of the worst-case scenario I'll feel stronger
> about making a decision.

You have to be able to reprogram the chip. If your chip is PLCC32 and
socketed, no soldering is required. If you have a SPI chip and a
dediprog or bus pirate, you should get away without soldering. However,
there is a reasonably big chance that, on your first try, you will not
produce a coreboot image that is able to load an OS on a previously
unsupported system.

Stefan




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