Messages in this thread | | | Subject | Re: Linux 2.5.51 | From | (Eric W. Biederman) | Date | 12 Dec 2002 08:01:42 -0700 |
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Benjamin Herrenschmidt <benh@kernel.crashing.org> writes:
> On Wed, 2002-12-11 at 10:25, Eric W. Biederman wrote: > > > Well, I'm not sure it quite works yet. Maybe unaccelerated, but anyway, > > > my version of radeonfb for 2.5 isn't accelerated yet anyway. I'll work > > > on that (or Ani will) now that the API is stable enough. > > > > How well does this driver work if you don't have a firmware > > driver initialize the card? aka a pci option ROM. > > Probably not at all
Well it was worth asking.
> > I am interested because with LinuxBIOS it is still a pain to run > > PCI option roms, and I don't necessarily even have then if it a > > motherboard with video. There are some embedded/non-x86 platforms > > with similar issues. > > Well, at least r128's and radeon's need the memory controller and PLLs > initialized by the BIOS/firmware, we don't have documentation about how > to acheive that ourselves (and this can depend on the specific wiring of > a given card anyway).
I believe those actions have to be taken. I haven't seen how flexible the chips are with respect to which memory they take, which is generally where most of the complexity comes in.
I have written northbridge memory initialization code that generally does not depend on the motherboard, I would be very surprised to find out that video card are generally more difficult (except in the area of documentation).
> > My primary interest is in the cheap ATI Rage XL chip that is on many > > server board. PCI Vendor/device id 1002:4752 (rev 27) from lspci. > > > > If nothing else if some one could point me to some resources on > > how to get the appropriate documentation from the video chipset > > manufacturers I would be happy. > > > > But I did want to at least point that running a system with out bios > > initialized video was certainly among the cases that are used. > > This is not possible with most modern cards without specific POST code > provided by the chip manufacturer.
Without documentation surely. Though for that aspect of things I primarily care about the cheap controllers that are used for onboard video. Which I suspect is a much simpler case to handle.
Eric
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