I've already pissed off or hurt somebody's feeling at NSC for discussing our
dealings with them... so I shouldn't say much but they have given us (gratis,
it's not free like speech) something they call "xpressloader" which does the
Geode and cs5530 chip initialization. Supposedly it is available to anyone
who signs their NDA, I haven't heard of anyone else getting it though. If you
go asking for xpressloader don't tell them I sent you.
It does most of the chipset configuration, loads a VSA binary and then stops.
>From there we have retrofitted parts of the LinuxBIOS code on to it and have
created a Linux boot loader for the Geode. It only boots out of flash, there
isn't any video yet but we have done all the PCI enumeration. From there we
have made a kernel switcher work, like the LinuxBIOS project proposes, we boot
out of flash with a kernel that has enough services to read the disk then we
can read a kernel off of the disk and boot in to it.
We can give you our code but not theirs. I understand Insyde wants about $8 a
pop for their BIOS, so you can get a pretty good BoM savings by doing it this
way.
Ian Nelson
Paul Robertson wrote:
> In general, Linux just needs some of the hardware (cpu registers, chipset,
> super i/o, pci bridge, etc.) to have been initialised, and it needs a few
> basic services (int 10h, int 13h, a couple of int 15h services,...)
>
> The Geode is a bit special in that the BIOS normally includes a binary
> component called the VSA, and of course a VGA BIOS
> The VSA runs in system management mode and virtualises some of the hardware
> e.g. the sound and graphics devices.
> There is some relationship between the VGA BIOS and the VSA too.
>
> I don't think NS make the VSA generally available.
>
> We have produced a customised (General Software) embedded BIOS for a Geode
> design. We have also produced boot-loaders for booting Linux without a BIOS
> for other x86 designs. From my experience, I would not recommend writing
> your own boot-loader unless you can live without graphics and sound.
>
> Paul Robertson
> LocSoft Ltd
> www.locsoft.com
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Benjamin Chow" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
> To: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
> Sent: Saturday, November 18, 2000 2:20 AM
> Subject: Linux and the BIOS
>
> > Hi,
> >
> > I'm looking to bring linux to a custom single board computer based on
> > National Semiconductor's GEODE reference designs.
> >
> > My question is: what is the relationship between linux and the BIOS?
> > Does linux use BIOS calls to interface to hardware or can it be made to
> talk
> > directly to the hardware?
> >
> > Thanks,
> >
> > Ben
> >
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