[LinuxBIOS] OK, I'm lost

[Peter Stuge]

On Wed, Apr 18, 2007 at 09:39:54AM -0500, Randall Philipson wrote:
> I assume that I need to create a VT8454 directory in targets/via
> and mainboard/via

Yep. In mainboard/ you'll need to put one Options.lb that lists all
the options used by this mainboard, and their defaults.

Also a file Config.lb which can do clever calculations using options
set by Options.lb, but most importantly it is sort-of a macro file
for generating the Makefile and some of the binaries. Here you'll
specify what other files to pull in and what devices are where on the
PCI bus.

In targets you'll have a Config.lb with the options that should be
used to build the board, here you can overried the defaults set by
mainboard/*/Options.lb, but AFAICS the mainboard/*/Config.lb can not
be overridden.


> (VT8454 is the eval board,I'm actually working on getting an MSI
> Industrial MS-9802 so I may have to copy everything over to that
> since I doubt the VT8454 will do anyone any good).

Right. Please make two directories. Work with the
mainboard/via/vt8454 until it works, then copy things over to
mainboard/msi/ms9802.


> But I'm not sure what to copy into those directories as a starting
> point?  Is the EPIA-M good enough, I'm having a hard time parsing
> the files in there so I'm at a loss.

It seems the EPIA-M port is rather cut-n-pasty from various other
files. Not 100% tidy, but it does work.


> In the src/northbridge and src/sourthbridge directories I assume
> I'll need to create a cx700 directory.

northbridge yes, southbridge maybe. The southbridge seems to be a
vt8237 core, perhaps you don't need to make a special southbridge
directory for it.

What about CPU? Does your board have a C3 or C7 CPU? Currently
there's only code for C3 in LB.


> But once again I'm at a loss as to which directory to use as a base
> platform.  Everything I know about the CX700 seems so different
> that I'm concerned nothing will work.  If I can just get it started
> to a point where I start getting serial output

This is definately the starting point, but it already requires the
superio to be working properly. There's no support for vt8237 but
perhaps the vt8235 is at least a little similar. (Wasn't the 8237
being worked on already by the way?)


> I think I'll have a place where I can at least start working and
> try things.  If I use the EPIA-M setup, do you think I'll at least
> get that far?

Maybe if you're lucky. epia-m has vt8235. Try it. :)


> I've included my lspci and dmidecode output for everyone's reading
> pleasure. 

Not so much a pleasure since everything is listed as unknown. :\
Could you update your pci.ids? (Look in /usr/share somewhere.)


> 0000:00:01.0 PCI bridge: VIA Technologies, Inc. VT8237 PCI Bridge
> (prog-if 00 [Normal decode])

Here's the 8237.


//Peter