Re: Dell Media Direct button
Javier Martín wrote: 2008/8/20 Colin D Bennett [EMAIL PROTECTED]: On Wed, 20 Aug 2008 12:12:59 +0200 Robert Millan [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: On Wed, Aug 20, 2008 at 10:57:22AM +0200, Per Öberg wrote: Hi Some laptops, e.g., from Dell have a special button that they use to boot a special embedded OS for media only instead of the ordinary OS. For my Dell XPS1330M I can determine if the Media button was pressed by first writing 0xf9 to port 0x70 and then testing bit 0x08 of port 0x71. It would be really nice if such a test could be enabled in grub so that grub can go directly to a specific menu alternative without showing the gui if the media button was pressed. Is this interesting? I'd like to contribute but I don't know where to start. Sounds interesting, but this needs some thought on how to design it. I suppose what you want is change the 'default' variable. Perhaps increase it by 1? But then, where do you do this? grub_machine_init is too early as 'default' hasn't been set yet. Maybe we could have a global 'int default_offset' variable that is initialized in grub_machine_init and later on used by normal.mod? If I pressed the Media Direct button, I would also want to have a timeout of 0, since by pressing the Media Direct button instead of the power button, I've already indicated which entry I want to boot, and there is no need to show the menu -- unless, perhaps, we decided to show a different media menu... so hopefully giving all the power to the grub.cfg script would be enough to make all this possible. Regards, Colin ___ Grub-devel mailing list Grub-devel@gnu.org http://lists.gnu.org/mailman/listinfo/grub-devel Well, I own a XPS1330 myself (I'm writing from it now, as I'm taking a week at the beach in Benidorm ^^). This functionality could be implemented by a module that used the pre-menu hooks proposed by Bean: it would check the status before the menu is shown, then act on the result. However, all this assumes that pressing that key creates no additional side effect like the replacement of the MBR by the system firmware, booting another MBR written in flash memory or something like that: I thought the choice took place at the real MBR, but disassembling it revealed that it does not use the mentioned I/O ports interface, so most likely what the system firmware does is set the active flag in the MediaDirect partition. I'm ready to check any related patches on the actual hardware _once I'm back in Madrid_ because here I have no recovery tools. -Habbit ___ Grub-devel mailing list Grub-devel@gnu.org http://lists.gnu.org/mailman/listinfo/grub-devel It works for me =) See how below... There might be different firmware versions out there and there's been a lot of fuss about early versions of MD screwing up you partition table. There has also been suggestions on how to disable it by overwriting your MBR (http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=606345). There seems to be a number of different versions in the range of 1-3 and some uses a hidden HPA partion while some hides the partition by changing the partition id. The installation process and the possibility to upgrade between the different version indicates (not same as proof, i know) that the firmware does about the same for the different releases and that it is the MBR that is important since this is what you install to make it work. Dan Goodell has a website that describes his findings of how the Dell MBR works (http://www.goodells.net/dellrestore/hpa-issues.htm). On this website he indicates that these ports exists. I believe that his documentation is for MD v1-2 and I have v3.3. He has disassembled the MBR code and the procedure showed in the part he sent me showed out to work perfectly when using in my test setup. -- My setup: -- Comp: Dell XPS1330M, Media Direct version: 3.3 Delivered: 2008-07-14 Disk layout: - grub legacy on MBR, - 100Mb (/dev/sda1, Main grub partiton, config chainloads sda2, sda3 or sda5) - 100Mb (/dev/sda2, geexbox, with own grub and grub config files in /boot) - 30Gb, (/dev/sda3, Kubuntu with own grub and grub config files) - Extended partition ~250Gb linux (/dev/sda5, Not using yet but with test-boot-loader) ,~2Gb swap (/dev/sda6) N I have a small boot loader written from scratch, which is attached to the mail, that i dd to /dev/sda5 using dd if=boot.bin of=/dev/sda5 count=512 bs=1 If i press the MD button it will show a splash screen and then show grub main menu, same menu as with ordinary power button (but the graphics mode is different). I can then choose to chainload /dev/sda5 which changes the graphics mode and turns the screen
Re: Dell Media Direct button
Robert Millan wrote: On Wed, Aug 20, 2008 at 10:57:22AM +0200, Per Öberg wrote: Hi Some laptops, e.g., from Dell have a special button that they use to boot a special embedded OS for media only instead of the ordinary OS. For my Dell XPS1330M I can determine if the Media button was pressed by first writing 0xf9 to port 0x70 and then testing bit 0x08 of port 0x71. It would be really nice if such a test could be enabled in grub so that grub can go directly to a specific menu alternative without showing the gui if the media button was pressed. Is this interesting? I'd like to contribute but I don't know where to start. Sounds interesting, but this needs some thought on how to design it. I suppose what you want is change the 'default' variable. Perhaps increase it by 1? But then, where do you do this? grub_machine_init is too early as 'default' hasn't been set yet. Maybe we could have a global 'int default_offset' variable that is initialized in grub_machine_init and later on used by normal.mod? The sequence of writing to port 0x70 / reading from port 0x71 reflects reading from the computer's cmos nvram memory. bit 7 of 0x70 is reserved for disabling NMIs, so the actual information is stored in byte 0x79[8] in the cmos. To allow full flexibility, there should just be a module that allows reading / writing the cmos values (could also be useful for other things, such as reading a boot order set by the bios). Everything else makes more sense in scripting: - changing default - changing timeout - support for bit operations in the parser - etc... -- coresystems GmbH • Brahmsstr. 16 • D-79104 Freiburg i. Br. Tel.: +49 761 7668825 • Fax: +49 761 7664613 Email: [EMAIL PROTECTED] • http://www.coresystems.de/ Registergericht: Amtsgericht Freiburg • HRB 7656 Geschäftsführer: Stefan Reinauer • Ust-IdNr.: DE245674866 ___ Grub-devel mailing list Grub-devel@gnu.org http://lists.gnu.org/mailman/listinfo/grub-devel
Re: Dell Media Direct button
2008/8/21 Stefan Reinauer [EMAIL PROTECTED]: Robert Millan wrote: On Wed, Aug 20, 2008 at 10:57:22AM +0200, Per Öberg wrote: Hi Some laptops, e.g., from Dell have a special button that they use to boot a special embedded OS for media only instead of the ordinary OS. For my Dell XPS1330M I can determine if the Media button was pressed by first writing 0xf9 to port 0x70 and then testing bit 0x08 of port 0x71. It would be really nice if such a test could be enabled in grub so that grub can go directly to a specific menu alternative without showing the gui if the media button was pressed. Is this interesting? I'd like to contribute but I don't know where to start. Sounds interesting, but this needs some thought on how to design it. I suppose what you want is change the 'default' variable. Perhaps increase it by 1? But then, where do you do this? grub_machine_init is too early as 'default' hasn't been set yet. Maybe we could have a global 'int default_offset' variable that is initialized in grub_machine_init and later on used by normal.mod? The sequence of writing to port 0x70 / reading from port 0x71 reflects reading from the computer's cmos nvram memory. bit 7 of 0x70 is reserved for disabling NMIs, so the actual information is stored in byte 0x79[8] in the cmos. To allow full flexibility, there should just be a module that allows reading / writing the cmos values (could also be useful for other things, such as reading a boot order set by the bios). Everything else makes more sense in scripting: - changing default - changing timeout - support for bit operations in the parser - etc... -- coresystems GmbH • Brahmsstr. 16 • D-79104 Freiburg i. Br. Tel.: +49 761 7668825 • Fax: +49 761 7664613 Email: [EMAIL PROTECTED] • http://www.coresystems.de/ Registergericht: Amtsgericht Freiburg • HRB 7656 Geschäftsführer: Stefan Reinauer • Ust-IdNr.: DE245674866 ___ Grub-devel mailing list Grub-devel@gnu.org http://lists.gnu.org/mailman/listinfo/grub-devel So what about a new nvram module in i386-pc that creates a variable $NVRAM hooked to routines getting/setting the live contents of the cmos memory? Then menu scripts can check its contents, among them the MediaDirect button. -Habbit ___ Grub-devel mailing list Grub-devel@gnu.org http://lists.gnu.org/mailman/listinfo/grub-devel
Re: Dell Media Direct button
On Thu, Aug 21, 2008 at 02:13:05PM +0200, Stefan Reinauer wrote: The sequence of writing to port 0x70 / reading from port 0x71 reflects reading from the computer's cmos nvram memory. bit 7 of 0x70 is reserved for disabling NMIs, so the actual information is stored in byte 0x79[8] in the cmos. To allow full flexibility, there should just be a module that allows reading / writing the cmos values (could also be useful for other things, such as reading a boot order set by the bios). Ah, good catch. For the record, we already have code that accesses cmos, in the date handling functions recently added by Bean. -- Robert Millan The DRM opt-in fallacy: Your data belongs to us. We will decide when (and how) you may access your data; but nobody's threatening your freedom: we still allow you to remove your data and not access it at all. ___ Grub-devel mailing list Grub-devel@gnu.org http://lists.gnu.org/mailman/listinfo/grub-devel
Dell Media Direct button
Hi Some laptops, e.g., from Dell have a special button that they use to boot a special embedded OS for media only instead of the ordinary OS. For my Dell XPS1330M I can determine if the Media button was pressed by first writing 0xf9 to port 0x70 and then testing bit 0x08 of port 0x71. It would be really nice if such a test could be enabled in grub so that grub can go directly to a specific menu alternative without showing the gui if the media button was pressed. Is this interesting? I'd like to contribute but I don't know where to start. Regards Per Öberg -- Per Öberg, Ph.D. Student Address: Division of Vehicular Systems Department of Electrical Engineering Linköpings universitet 581 83 Linköping, SWEDEN Phone: +46 (0)13-28 23 69 e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] PGP: http://www.fs.isy.liu.se/~oberg/0x61984A9D.asc begin:vcard fn;quoted-printable:Per =C3=96berg n;quoted-printable:=C3=96berg;Per org;quoted-printable:Link=C3=B6pings Universitet adr;quoted-printable;quoted-printable:;;M=C3=A4ster Mattias v=C3=A4g;Link=C3=B6ping;;581 83;Sweden email;internet:[EMAIL PROTECTED] title:Doktorand (PhD Student) tel;work:+46 (0)13 - 282369 tel;fax:+46 (0)13 - 282035 tel;home:+46 (0)13 - 212825 tel;cell:+46 (0)70 - 4857936 note:PGP Public Key: http://www.fs.isy.liu.se/~oberg/0x61984A9D.asc x-mozilla-html:FALSE url:http://www.fs.isy.liu.se/~oberg/ version:2.1 end:vcard ___ Grub-devel mailing list Grub-devel@gnu.org http://lists.gnu.org/mailman/listinfo/grub-devel
Re: Dell Media Direct button
On Wed, Aug 20, 2008 at 10:57:22AM +0200, Per Öberg wrote: Hi Some laptops, e.g., from Dell have a special button that they use to boot a special embedded OS for media only instead of the ordinary OS. For my Dell XPS1330M I can determine if the Media button was pressed by first writing 0xf9 to port 0x70 and then testing bit 0x08 of port 0x71. It would be really nice if such a test could be enabled in grub so that grub can go directly to a specific menu alternative without showing the gui if the media button was pressed. Is this interesting? I'd like to contribute but I don't know where to start. Sounds interesting, but this needs some thought on how to design it. I suppose what you want is change the 'default' variable. Perhaps increase it by 1? But then, where do you do this? grub_machine_init is too early as 'default' hasn't been set yet. Maybe we could have a global 'int default_offset' variable that is initialized in grub_machine_init and later on used by normal.mod? -- Robert Millan The DRM opt-in fallacy: Your data belongs to us. We will decide when (and how) you may access your data; but nobody's threatening your freedom: we still allow you to remove your data and not access it at all. ___ Grub-devel mailing list Grub-devel@gnu.org http://lists.gnu.org/mailman/listinfo/grub-devel
Re: Dell Media Direct button
Robert Millan wrote: On Wed, Aug 20, 2008 at 10:57:22AM +0200, Per Öberg wrote: Hi Some laptops, e.g., from Dell have a special button that they use to boot a special embedded OS for media only instead of the ordinary OS. For my Dell XPS1330M I can determine if the Media button was pressed by first writing 0xf9 to port 0x70 and then testing bit 0x08 of port 0x71. It would be really nice if such a test could be enabled in grub so that grub can go directly to a specific menu alternative without showing the gui if the media button was pressed. Is this interesting? I'd like to contribute but I don't know where to start. Sounds interesting, but this needs some thought on how to design it. I suppose what you want is change the 'default' variable. Perhaps increase it by 1? But then, where do you do this? grub_machine_init is too early as 'default' hasn't been set yet. Maybe we could have a global 'int default_offset' variable that is initialized in grub_machine_init and later on used by normal.mod? Nah... Do a module to query for it and if it is there then use scripting to do alternative path within script. Much better and more convenient. And you can use script to increment default variable if needed :) ___ Grub-devel mailing list Grub-devel@gnu.org http://lists.gnu.org/mailman/listinfo/grub-devel
Re: Dell Media Direct button
On Wed, 20 Aug 2008 12:12:59 +0200 Robert Millan [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: On Wed, Aug 20, 2008 at 10:57:22AM +0200, Per Öberg wrote: Hi Some laptops, e.g., from Dell have a special button that they use to boot a special embedded OS for media only instead of the ordinary OS. For my Dell XPS1330M I can determine if the Media button was pressed by first writing 0xf9 to port 0x70 and then testing bit 0x08 of port 0x71. It would be really nice if such a test could be enabled in grub so that grub can go directly to a specific menu alternative without showing the gui if the media button was pressed. Is this interesting? I'd like to contribute but I don't know where to start. Sounds interesting, but this needs some thought on how to design it. I suppose what you want is change the 'default' variable. Perhaps increase it by 1? But then, where do you do this? grub_machine_init is too early as 'default' hasn't been set yet. Maybe we could have a global 'int default_offset' variable that is initialized in grub_machine_init and later on used by normal.mod? If I pressed the Media Direct button, I would also want to have a timeout of 0, since by pressing the Media Direct button instead of the power button, I've already indicated which entry I want to boot, and there is no need to show the menu -- unless, perhaps, we decided to show a different media menu... so hopefully giving all the power to the grub.cfg script would be enough to make all this possible. Regards, Colin signature.asc Description: PGP signature ___ Grub-devel mailing list Grub-devel@gnu.org http://lists.gnu.org/mailman/listinfo/grub-devel
Re: Dell Media Direct button
2008/8/20 Colin D Bennett [EMAIL PROTECTED]: On Wed, 20 Aug 2008 12:12:59 +0200 Robert Millan [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: On Wed, Aug 20, 2008 at 10:57:22AM +0200, Per Öberg wrote: Hi Some laptops, e.g., from Dell have a special button that they use to boot a special embedded OS for media only instead of the ordinary OS. For my Dell XPS1330M I can determine if the Media button was pressed by first writing 0xf9 to port 0x70 and then testing bit 0x08 of port 0x71. It would be really nice if such a test could be enabled in grub so that grub can go directly to a specific menu alternative without showing the gui if the media button was pressed. Is this interesting? I'd like to contribute but I don't know where to start. Sounds interesting, but this needs some thought on how to design it. I suppose what you want is change the 'default' variable. Perhaps increase it by 1? But then, where do you do this? grub_machine_init is too early as 'default' hasn't been set yet. Maybe we could have a global 'int default_offset' variable that is initialized in grub_machine_init and later on used by normal.mod? If I pressed the Media Direct button, I would also want to have a timeout of 0, since by pressing the Media Direct button instead of the power button, I've already indicated which entry I want to boot, and there is no need to show the menu -- unless, perhaps, we decided to show a different media menu... so hopefully giving all the power to the grub.cfg script would be enough to make all this possible. Regards, Colin ___ Grub-devel mailing list Grub-devel@gnu.org http://lists.gnu.org/mailman/listinfo/grub-devel Well, I own a XPS1330 myself (I'm writing from it now, as I'm taking a week at the beach in Benidorm ^^). This functionality could be implemented by a module that used the pre-menu hooks proposed by Bean: it would check the status before the menu is shown, then act on the result. However, all this assumes that pressing that key creates no additional side effect like the replacement of the MBR by the system firmware, booting another MBR written in flash memory or something like that: I thought the choice took place at the real MBR, but disassembling it revealed that it does not use the mentioned I/O ports interface, so most likely what the system firmware does is set the active flag in the MediaDirect partition. I'm ready to check any related patches on the actual hardware _once I'm back in Madrid_ because here I have no recovery tools. -Habbit ___ Grub-devel mailing list Grub-devel@gnu.org http://lists.gnu.org/mailman/listinfo/grub-devel
