[OLPC-devel] you can try this

[Goodrich,Steven]

Sorry for breaking that 64k limit; I'm not sure how else we could get VG
(graphics) support.

I'm trying to build the LinuxBIOS image, but it's asking for a payload
and I'm not sure what to give it. I'll grab a new snapshot in a few
minutes and try building again.

Hmm... How are we going to get VSA into the LinuxBIOS distribution so
others can build?

I also need to get a new MSR list from the current build (with the
new/bigger VSA) to see how much of the VG is being initialized (if any),
and then to make a list of what else needs to be initialized.  

Egad... 20 years in the industry (Low-level PC/Windows), and I feel like
a babe in Linuxland.


    -- Steve G. 

Steve Goodrich (Steven.Goodrich at amd.com)
Advanced Micro Devices, Inc.

-----Original Message-----
From: Ronald G Minnich [mailto:rminnich at lanl.gov] 
Sent: Thursday, May 25, 2006 3:57 PM
To: Goodrich,Steven
Cc: devel at laptop.org
Subject: Re: [OLPC-devel] you can try this

OK, I am just back from travel ...

Steve, your VSA was 70k, which busted the 64k limit. So, I have added
support to OLPC that assumes that the VSA is NRV2B compressed. This cut
it from 70k to 42k. You now have 20k left to consume. More desirable, in
future, would be for us to get this down to 32k, to leave room for linux
...

anyway, I have run your VSA but still have no video.

What else do I need to get video turned on?

Is anyone out there working on the 'definitive' kernel/initrd, or should
I be doing that after all? I don't mind, just checking.

Ollie and I are in boston next week. I'm willing and able to open up a
'hack day' anytime after wed. so we can beat on this hardware. Any
interest?

I am attaching the nrv2b compressed OLPC VSA. I will be committing the
changes for handling a compressed VSA in few minutes. Be warned: you
can't go back :-)

Steve, for binary distro of olpc vsa, I recommend you use the
linuxbiosv2/util/nrv2b/nrv2b utility, as follows:
nrv2b e olpc_vsa.bin olpc_vsa.bin.nrv
dd if=olpc_vsa.bin.nrv of=olpc_vsa.bin.nrv.64k bs=65536 conv=sync

Also, Carl-Daniel is working on a better compression mechanism, which I
hope we will move to very soon. This will get smaller, I think.

thanks

ron