This HOWTO contains instructions for using LinuxBIOSv2 on the VIA EPIA-M and MII mini-itx based motherboards. Version 1.0 initial write for LinuxBIOSv2 by Nick Barker Using materials and inspiration from - EPIA HOWTO for freebios/linuxbios by Mark Wilkinson - Based on the K7SEM HOWTO by Brenden Bixler, - which is based on the Sis 630 HOWTO by Ron Minnich. - Getting Started with freebios2 - a mail posting by Jay Miller Unfortunately, there is a step in this HOWTO that could be hazardous. The hazards include (but are not limited to) 1) destroying your motherboard 2) hurting yourself 3) killing yourself Because of these hazards, you must take full responsibility if you decide to install LinuxBIOSv2 following these procedures. Neither the author of this HOWTO or any organisation or individual associated with the LinuxBIOSv2 project can be held responsible for any adverse consequences of your attempt to follow these procedures. WARNING: We assume you've built kernels, know how to open up your PC, and how to yank the flash part out while power is on and put in a different part. There is NO WARRANTY, express or implied, with this software. In fact, if you don't know what you're doing, and you get careless, you're going to end up with a nice paperweight instead of a motherboard, an emergency room bill, or a funeral service. YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED. Additional information available at: http://www.linuxbios.org/ Linux distribution: Most modern distributions are supported. Other software notes: You MUST have 'as' version 2.9.5 or later. You MUST have 'gcc' version other than 2.96. Pre-requisites -------------- Before you start there are a few things which you need to arrange: Since you are going to be re-programming the flash rom on the mainboard, and it is likely that you first few attempts / images will not be right, then you need a way of restoring a known working bios onto a board which is otherwise dead. Recommended: you might want to get a Bios Saviour (RD1-PL) - this is a handy little piggy-back flash chip that saves you destroying the original flash image. This howto assumes that you have this device, though other methods and devices exist for programming flash roms. LinuxBIOSv2 sends debugging output through the first serial port. You might want to arrange a null modem serial cable for connecting this serial port to a second computer running a terminal emulation program. I use 'microcom' which is simple and allows all output to be captured into a file for later analysis. The port is set up to use 115200 baud, 8bit, No parity, 1 stop bit. Under LinuxBIOSv2 you have a choice of 'payloads'. The payload is the program which LinuxBIOSv2 hands over to once it has finished initialising everything on the mainboard at boot time. The payload is included in the flash rom along with LinuxBIOSv2, and usually its function is to locate and load the operating system. The 2 most common payloads are FILO, for booting Linux off an IDE disk, and Etherboot for booting a diskless workstation accross a network. This howto assumes the use of FILO. A vga bios image. LinuxBIOS2v2 uses the vga bios of the original Via BIOS to initialise the vga. It is not directly downloadable, but you can capture it from a system running with the original bios, so you might as well capture it now: dd if=/dev/mem of=/video.bios.bin \ bs=1 count=65536 skip=790528 Getting Going ------------- The steps for loading LinuxBIOSv2 are simple: 1) Get Linux installed on your machine. 2) Download and install LinuxBIOSv2 sources. 3) Understand how to flash your rom. 4) Download, Configure and build the FILO payload 5) Configure and build LinuxBIOSv2. 6) Burn the LinuxBIOSv2 image to the flash. 7) Reset the machine -- did it work? Options Once it has booted i) Speeding up the boot ii) Enhancing ACPI support iii) On EPIA-MII, booting the computer from on-board compact flash Step 1) Get Linux installed on your LinuxBIOSv2 machine. Don't forget to note which partition is / (/dev/hda3 etc.) Step 2) Grab the LinuxBIOSv2 source. cd to the directory you want the source tree to be. Note: this will create a sub directory called LinuxBIOSv2 which contains the LinuxBIOSv2 source code Download the latest code for LinuxBIOSv2 from the downloads page at http://www.linuxbios.org having expanded the tarball, cd into the LinuxBIOSv2 directory and browse around. The top level directory includes: 'src' - where all of the source files for LinuxBIOSv2 are located. 'targets' - where all of the platform specific configuration files for each platform supported by LinuxBIOSv2 are kept, and where the build files and build process occur. 'util' - where various utilities required for the build process and debugging are kept. Hereafter, this howto refers to directory locations relative to these directories, unless an absolute pathlist is given. Step 3) Whilst getting LinuxBIOSv2 going on your EPIA-M, you are almost certainly going to be re-programming the flash rom several times, and there is a very high probability that at one of these stages you will get a flash rom that fails to boot your mainboard into Linux. Before we proceed any further, it is absolutley vital that you have worked out how to program the flash chip, and how you are going to get back to your original bios when things go wrong. Otherwise you will end up with a very expensive paper weight as described earlier. You can use a professional Data I/O burner, or you can be foolhardy and simply re-program the flash part of a running machine. However whilst getting going a BIOS SAVIOUR RD1-PL is a very inexpensive but effective device for ensuring that you always have a working BIOS to hand. The bios saviour is a little device which plugs into the flash rom socket of the motherboard, and the original flash rom then plugs into the bios saviour. The bios saviour includes a second flash rom chip, and either of these chips can be selected as the active chip by a simple supplied electrical switch mounted on flying leads. Make sure that this switch is clearly visible, so that you know which chip you are booting from, and which chip you are about to re-program. Decide which chip you are going to use for LinuxBIOSv2, and which chip you are going to keep the original working bios in, and mark them clearly on this switch. In the 'util/flash_and_burn' directory is the source for the 'flash_rom' utility, which is great for re-programming the flash chips on the EPIA-M / MII. Once you have built this utility: Make sure that it can detect both flash chips on the bios saviour: with switch set to chip 1 run 'flash_rom' flash rom should search through a list of known flash rom device types until it finds the type of the original chip from your EPIA-M, and report what it has found. with the switch set to chip 2, run 'flash_rom' again and confirm that it can 'see' the second flash chip. If your are lucky, the actual part number of the 2 chips may be different, which you can use just prior to re-programming a chip to make sure you are programming the right chip. Make sure that you can read / write and verify a flash chip: with switch set to 1 (original BIOS) run 'flash_rom -r original.rom' this should read the contents of the original bios into the file original.rom confirm that the newly read file matches the original bios 'flash_rom -v original.rom' set the switch to 2 confirm if you can that flash_rom 'sees' the second chip 'flash_rom' - and look for the detected device type write the known good bios to the second chip with 'flash_rom -w original.bios' verify that it has written correctly 'flash_rom -v original.rom' with switch left at position 2, reboot the machine and make sure that it comes up corectly. If it does then you now have a working flash programming environment. If it does not, then set the switch back to 1, reboot the machine, and investigate further. Step 4) Download FILO from http://felixx.tsn.or.jp/~ts1/filo, and expand In the FILO source directory, type 'make' The first invocation of make builds the default Config file, which should be edited to meet your needs. In particular look at the line: "AUTOBOOT_FILE ...." and make sure that it looks sensible for your setup. The line AUTOBOOT_FILE "hda1:/vmlinuz root=/dev/hda2 console=ttyS0,115200" reads as: - find a linux os image on device hda partion 1 called vmlinuz, - load this image - execute the image passing kernel command line parameters of: "root=/dev/hda2 console=ttyS0,115200" after editing Config, type 'make' again, and this will build the file 'filo.elf' which is the payload we will be using. Copy this file to somewhere which the LinuxBIOSv2 makefile can easily find it. I just tend to keep it in the root directory though I'm sure others will condem me for that practise: 'cp filo.elf /' Make sure that you have compiled a kernel bzImage, and copied it to the file location you identified in the FILO Config file. Step 5) The next step is to create the build environment for the epia-m. This step creates the appropriate makefiles and build directories for the epia-m. 'cd targets' './buildtarget via/epia-m' This step will create a subdirectory in the targets/via/epia-m directory called epia-m, which is the build directory for LinuxBIOSv2. The main configuration file for the epia-m is in 'targets/via/epia-m/Config.lb' If you need to make any changes to the configuration, for example you wish to locate filo.elf in a place other than '/filo.elf', or during the more advanced steps of this HOWTO, then these changes are made to this file. You need to re-run the './buildtartegt via/epia-m' after any such change. The directory 'targets/via/epia-m' contains other sample Config.lb files, any of which can be copied through to Config.lb in order to become the current configuration. Once you have your Config.lb set up to your needs, and the build environment created with './buildtarget', it is time to build a rom image. Change directory into the build directory 'targets/via/epia-m/epia-m' The configuration as set up by the buildtarget process will create a LinuxBIOS which is exactly 196608 bytes long, which is exactly 64K bytes short of what needs to go into the 256K flash rom. The other 64K is for your vga bios which is simply merged with the linuxbios image. The easiest way to make this happen is to edit the Makefile and change the line cat fallback/linuxbios.rom > linuxbios.rom to cat /video.bios.bin fallback/linuxbios.rom >linuxbios.rom Note: the above order of merging the files together is critical You will need to remember to make this change every time after you have run the buildtarget program. Type 'make', and wait for the build process to complete. If all went well, then you should find a file 'linuxbios.rom' in your current directory. Check that it is 262144 bytes long - i.e. exactly the right size for the flash rom chip in your EPIA-M / MII. Step 6) NOTE: BE ADVISED THAT THIS STEP CAN KILL YOUR MOTHERBOARD ! IF YOU DO NOT HAVE A MEANS OF RECOVERING FROM FLASHING YOUR BIOS, YOU MAY/WILL BE LEFT WITH A DEAD MACHINE. Assuming that you are using a Bios Saviour, make sure that the switch is set to the position for your LinuxBIOSv2 image. Type 'flash_rom' to make sure it can see the flash chip, and verify its type if possible. Only once you are happy that you are about to re-programme the desired chip, type 'flash_rom -w linuxbios.rom', and wait the few seconds it takes to program it. Once it has finished, verify that the chip was re-rogrammed correctly - type 'flash_rom -v linuxbios.rom' Step 7) Power cycle the machine. LinuxBIOSv2 should come up in a few seconds. With a connection to the serial port set at 115200, you should see LinuxBIOSv2 come up, launch FILO, and if you have a timeout set in FILO, then it may be waiting for you to confirm its boot command line. As long as you have this command line set up correctly, and an os image in the right place, then FILO should proceed to boot into your Linux os. If you do, CONGRATULATIONS ! It WORKED ! Pat yourself on the back, why not try the optional steps now ? If you don't, time to start capturing the output of the serial port and talking to the linuxbios mailing list. Optional steps - for use only if step 7 was successfull. OK so now we have a BIOS which boots your computer fully into the operating system, and depending upon your needs that may be all that you want. However LinuxBIOSv2 has a few more tricks up its sleeve should you find yourself hungry for more. Speeding up the boot -------------------- Linuxbios sends its debugging output to the first serial port and, depending upon the amount of debug output selected, can be the limiting factor in the speed with which it boots your computer - regardless of whether you have anything attached to the serial port. Linuxbios uses the notion of debug levels to control what is sent to the serial port. These levels range from 0 to 9 with 0 being the least verbose and 9 being the most verbose. These levels are defined in the Config.lb file described earlier. To reduce the output set: option MAXIMUM_CONSOLE_LOGLEVEL=8 option DEFAULT_CONSOLE_LOGLEVEL=8 to lower values. Next you will have to run 'buildtarget' again to propagate the effects of the config change. Then edit your Makefile again to include your video bios in the final merging. Then run 'make clean' followed by 'make'. Advanced ACPI ------------- LinuxBIOSv2 now supports ACPI on the epia-m and epia-m II. In particular the interrupt processing in Linux can be done through ACPI, and crude power management support is provided. This includes software power off, and power management events from the power button. It is possible to enhance this behaviour to provide the full capabilities of the original BIOS, which includes different sleep levels and wake from these levels upon certain events. This is achieved by using a 'grabbed' copy of the ACPI Differentiated System Descriptor Table or DSDT from the original BIOS. For copyright reasons this table cannot be included with the source distribution of LinuxBIOSv2. You MUST have 'iasl' - Intel's ACPI Asl compiler for Unix/Linux - http://developer.intel.com/technology/iapc/acpi/downloads.htm. To replace the LinuxBIOSv2 DSDT with the grabbed one from the original BIOS: - Start the computer using the original BIOS, and make sure that you have ACPI set up in the kernel that you are running - Grab the DSDT table - 'cat /proc/acpi/dsdt >dsdt.aml' - Convert to asl code - 'iasl -d dsdt.aml' (creates dsdt.dsl) - Convert it to a C hex table - 'iasl -tc dsdt.dsl' (creates dsdt.hex) - Replace the file 'src/mainboard/via/epia-m/dsdt.c with dsdt.hex Now re-build LinuxBIOSv2, re-program the flash and power cycle. If you wish to return to the LinuxBIOSv2 DSDT, then the original file dsdt.asl can be converted into a C hex file using 'iasl -tc dsdt.asl' Boot from Onboard Compact Flash (MII only) ------------------------------------------ LinuxBIOSv2 now supports the onboard compact flash on the MII as an IDE drive, and it is possible to boot directly from this drive using the following steps. The first step is to get Filo or whatever payload you are using to recognise and use this device. In order that the pcmcia subsystem of the Linux kernel can correctly configure the device later on in the boot process the CF is set up with its I/O registers in a contiguous block of 16 bytes at 0x1e0 through 0x1ef. Unfortunately this is not a standard IDE address which is why we need to 'fix' filo to use it. (Actually it is half of the address range used by IDE4, and so we need to be careful to tell the kernel not to probe that address - more on that later). The first step is to change the filo Config file. 1) Comment out SUPPORT_PCI=1. This line instructs filo to search for PCI based IDE adapters only, and the CF is not attached to a PCI based IDE controller. 2) Add the following two lines somewhere in the Config file: IDE2_CMD = 0x1e0 IDE2_CNTRL =0x1ec The second step is to modify the file drivers/ide.c in the filo source directory. Find the function 'find_ide_controller_compat' and change it to look like static int find_ide_controller_compat(struct controller *ctrl, int index) { if (index >= IDE_MAX_CONTROLLERS) return -1; #ifdef IDE2_CMD if(index == 2){ ctrl->cmd_base = IDE2_CMD; ctrl->ctrl_base = IDE2_CNTRL; return 0; } #endif ctrl->cmd_base = ide_base[index]; ctrl->ctrl_base = ide_base[index] + IDE_REG_EXTENDED_OFFSET; return 0; } Filo will now recognise the CF as the first device on the third IDE controller (i.e. ide2), and can be referred to as 'hde' The next step is to create an initrd file for your Linux kernel. What? Why? The CF socket on your MII is hardwired to the PCMCIA controller and for all intents and purposes it is a PCMCIA device. This means that once Linux boots it will be under the control of the pcmcia manager. Now according to the pcmcia-utils documentation, the pcmcia manager is intended to control and configure devices on an already running system. Yet if we need the CF to be the root device, it needs to be mounted very early on in the boot sequence, before the stage where pcmcia devices would normally be configured. The answer is to use an initrd file to get the pcmcia manager running early for the CF. If you are unfamiliar with initrd then 'man initrd' will give you more background. The easiest way to create an initrd is to use the script 'mkcfinitrd' which is at the bottom of this howto. This is a tailored version of the 'pcinitrd' script from the pcmcia-utils package. Make sure that 'ash' is available on your system as this is the tiny shell programme used during the initrd phase of booting. It is worth mounting the initrd generated, and looking over it to make sure that it contains all of the modules necessary to load and initialise the CF. It does not need drivers for whatever you use in the pcmcia socket, as that can be initialised later on in the boot process as before. Finally gzip the file created, and move it alongside your kernel. Next adjust your FILO command line to pick things up from the CF. My linux command line in filo looks like: AUTOBOOT_FILE = "hde:/vmlinuz initrd=hde:/initrd.gz root=/dev/hde console=tty0 ide4=noprobe" The ide4=noprobe option is required to stop the kernel from probing the address used by the CF. As this address is half that used as the standard address for a fifth (i.e. ide4) controller, the kernel hangs whilst trying to initialise this device if this option is not given. Finally make sure that you have copied the necessary files onto your CF, and re-boot your computer. ******************* mkcfinitrd script ************************************** #!/bin/sh # # Utility for constructing CF initrd for Epia-MII CF Boot # # Copyright (C) 2005 Nick Barker -- nick.barker9@btinternet.com # # Based on pcinitrd # Copyright (C) 1999 David A. Hinds -- dahinds@users.sourceforge.net SIZE=2400 MODULES="pcmcia/pcmcia_core.o pcmcia/ds.o pcmcia/yenta_socket.o" BLK="kernel/drivers/ide/legacy/ide-cs.o" KERNEL=`uname -r` MODDIR=/lib/modules/$KERNEL BIN="bin/mount bin/umount sbin/insmod sbin/cardmgr" LIB=`ls /lib/libc.so.? | sort | tail -1` ETC="/etc/ld.so.cache /etc/pcmcia/config /etc/pcmcia/config.opts" DEV="/dev/console /dev/null /dev/ram /dev/tty1 /dev/tty2 /dev/tty3 /dev/tty4" MNT=/tmp/initrd.mnt # name of the initrd file to make TARGET=/tmp/initrd fail() { umount $MNT rmdir $MNT exit 1 } trap fail SIGTERM SIGINT strip_cp() { if [ -d $3 ] ; then DEST=$3/`basename $2` else DEST=$3 fi strip $1 --verbose -o $DEST $2 | sed -e 's/([^ ]*)//g' || fail } mkdir --verbose $MNT || exit 1 echo "Creating filesystem on $TARGET" if [ -b $TARGET ] ; then rm $TARGET || fail fi dd if=$ROOT/dev/zero of=$TARGET bs=1k count=$SIZE echo "y" | mke2fs $TARGET $SIZE >/dev/null || fail mount --verbose -t ext2 -o loop $TARGET $MNT || fail rm -rf $MNT/lost+found echo "Creating Directories on $TARGET" for DIR in bin dev etc lib proc tmp mnt ; do mkdir --verbose $MNT/$DIR || fail done for DIR in block misc fs net pcmcia ; do mkdir --verbose $MNT/lib/$DIR || fail done echo "Copying Files to $TARGET" for F in $DEV ; do cp -a --verbose /$F $MNT/dev || fail done if [ -e /dev/systty ] ; then cp -a --verbose /dev/systty $MNT/dev || fail fi for F in $BIN ; do strip_cp --strip-all /$F $MNT/bin done strip_cp --strip-all /bin/ash $MNT/bin/sh for F in $LIB ; do strip_cp --strip-debug /$F $MNT/lib done cp --verbose /lib/ld-linux.so.? $MNT/lib || fail for F in $ETC ; do cp --verbose /$F $MNT/etc || fail done for F in scsi network ftl ide memory serial ; do touch $MNT/etc/$F ; chmod +x $MNT/etc/$F done for MOD in $MODULES ; do strip_cp --strip-debug $MODDIR/$MOD $MNT/lib/$MOD done strip_cp --strip-debug $MODDIR/$BLK $MNT/lib/block/ide-cs.o echo "Creating linuxrc startup script" cat > $MNT/linuxrc <<- 'EOF' #!/bin/sh mount -t proc /proc /proc echo "" echo "==== initrd: starting PCMCIA services ====" echo "" PC=/lib/pcmcia insmod $PC/pcmcia_core.o insmod $PC/yenta_socket.o insmod $PC/ds.o insmod /lib/block/ide-cs.o if [ "$DEBUG" != "" ] ; then V=-v ; fi cardmgr $V -q -o -c /etc -m /lib -s /tmp/stab -p /tmp/pid umount /proc echo "" if [ "$DEBUG" != "" ] ; then /bin/sh < /dev/console fi EOF chmod +x $MNT/linuxrc df -P $MNT | awk '/tmp/ { printf "%dK/%dK used\n",$3,$2 }' umount $VERBOSE $MNT rmdir $MNT echo "Finished $TARGET" echo "Now gzip $TARGET to create final initrd.gz" exit 0 *************************** end mkcfinitrd ***********************************