Re: fbdv/fbcon pending problems

On Mon, Feb 23, 2004 at 11:53:14AM +1100, Benjamin Herrenschmidt wrote:

 - mach64 lockups on LT-G (I'll try on an LT-Pro soon) plus other
mach64 bugs in the new version in the bk fbdev, I'll have a patch for
some of the problems, but I didn't find a good explanation for the
accel lockups yet

Question: Is fbdev supposed to work without BIOS? 

I have an ATI Technologies Inc 3D Rage Pro 215GP in an Alpha AXPpci33,
currently running with MILO as firmware/bootloader. 
For several reasons I want to change to the original SRM firmware. 
Unfortunately its intel_cpu/BIOS emulation locks up on the ATI BIOS. With
the BIOS disabled the SRM succeeds loading the kernel. fbdev seems to
initialize _something_, i.e. the monitor wakes up ans displays a stable
repeating pattern of vertical stripes. But it hangs the machine after
these lines on serial console:

fb0: ATY Mach64 frame buffer device on PCI
Installing knfsd (copyright (C) 1996 okir@monad.swb.de).

Booting the same kernel image (2.6.[13]) with MILO (which has a different
cpu emulation that succeeds executing the BIOS) works fine with fbdev. 

Bye,
Thorsten

-- 
| Thorsten Kranzkowski        Internet: dl8bcu@dl8bcu.de                      |
| Mobile: ++49 170 1876134       Snail: Kiebitzstr. 14, 49324 Melle, Germany  |
| Ampr: dl8bcu@db0lj.#rpl.deu.eu, dl8bcu@marvin.dl8bcu.ampr.org [44.130.8.19] |

Question: Is fbdev supposed to work without BIOS? 

It depends on the driver. Unfortunely most hardware companies will not 
give you info on how to boot a card BIOS-less :-( I do have code for the 
XL ati card to boot BIOS-less but it needs some work.

I have an ATI Technologies Inc 3D Rage Pro 215GP in an Alpha AXPpci33,
currently running with MILO as firmware/bootloader. 
For several reasons I want to change to the original SRM firmware. 
Unfortunately its intel_cpu/BIOS emulation locks up on the ATI BIOS. With
the BIOS disabled the SRM succeeds loading the kernel. fbdev seems to
initialize _something_, i.e. the monitor wakes up ans displays a stable
repeating pattern of vertical stripes. But it hangs the machine after
these lines on serial console:

fb0: ATY Mach64 frame buffer device on PCI
Installing knfsd (copyright (C) 1996 okir@monad.swb.de).

Booting the same kernel image (2.6.[13]) with MILO (which has a different
cpu emulation that succeeds executing the BIOS) works fine with fbdev. 

Bye,
Thorsten

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