On Thu, Dec 4, 2008 at 12:17 PM, Daniel Levine <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > My Aspire 3680 has a bad BIOS, is no longer under warranty, and is > already leaning towards obsolescence a year and a half after its > purchase; I'm wondering if Coreboot might work on it. > > The output of lspci follows: > 00:00.0 Host bridge: Intel Corporation Mobile 945GM/PM/GMS, 943/940GML > and 945GT Express Memory Controller Hub (rev 03) > 00:02.0 VGA compatible controller: Intel Corporation Mobile 945GM/GMS, > 943/940GML Express Integrated Graphics Controller (rev 03) > 00:02.1 Display controller: Intel Corporation Mobile 945GM/GMS/GME, > 943/940GML Express Integrated Graphics Controller (rev 03) > 00:1b.0 Audio device: Intel Corporation 82801G (ICH7 Family) High > Definition Audio Controller (rev 02) > 00:1c.0 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 82801G (ICH7 Family) PCI Express > Port 1 (rev 02) > 00:1c.1 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 82801G (ICH7 Family) PCI Express > Port 2 (rev 02) > 00:1c.2 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 82801G (ICH7 Family) PCI Express > Port 3 (rev 02) > 00:1d.0 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801G (ICH7 Family) USB > UHCI Controller #1 (rev 02) > 00:1d.1 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801G (ICH7 Family) USB > UHCI Controller #2 (rev 02) > 00:1d.2 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801G (ICH7 Family) USB > UHCI Controller #3 (rev 02) > 00:1d.3 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801G (ICH7 Family) USB > UHCI Controller #4 (rev 02) > 00:1d.7 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801G (ICH7 Family) USB2 > EHCI Controller (rev 02) > 00:1e.0 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 82801 Mobile PCI Bridge (rev e2) > 00:1f.0 ISA bridge: Intel Corporation 82801GBM (ICH7-M) LPC Interface > Bridge (rev 02) > 00:1f.2 IDE interface: Intel Corporation 82801GBM/GHM (ICH7 Family) > SATA IDE Controller (rev 02) > 00:1f.3 SMBus: Intel Corporation 82801G (ICH7 Family) SMBus Controller (rev > 02) > 02:00.0 Ethernet controller: Marvell Technology Group Ltd. 88E8038 > PCI-E Fast Ethernet Controller (rev 14) > 03:00.0 Ethernet controller: Atheros Communications Inc. AR242x > 802.11abg Wireless PCI Express Adapter (rev 01) > 0a:09.0 CardBus bridge: Texas Instruments PCIxx12 Cardbus Controller > 0a:09.2 Mass storage controller: Texas Instruments 5-in-1 Multimedia > Card Reader (SD/MMC/MS/MS PRO/xD) > > How well are 945GM and 82801G supported? Could I actually have > Coreboot working on this machine, or would I only succeed in bricking > it? Would I need custom code for the laptop?
they're quite well supported. But there is so much custom hardware in these laptops -- the embedded controller is the big one -- that you would have to commit to significant reverse engineering. This will be a bit of work absent help from Acer. > > Also, for whatever it's worth - can Coreboot load GNU GRUB (or > FreeBSD's BTX bootloader) instead of a Linux kernel? Does BTX make BIOS calls? In any event there are lots of bootloaders you can use, I believe (but have not tried) GRUB+seabios+coreboot ought to work. ron -- coreboot mailing list: [email protected] http://www.coreboot.org/mailman/listinfo/coreboot
