Re: matroxfb on SMP alpha
On Fri, Jan 24, 2003 at 03:43:25PM -0600, Bob McElrath wrote:
> Peter Petrakis [voodoo@alphadriven.org] wrote:
> > I'm sorry but if you want to run a graphics card in that machine, It
> > will probably never work. There is no x86 bios emulator support in
> > the firmware. It was removed to conserve space and make room for the
> > linux in rom (never finished).
>
> So then it will never be able to initialize most PCI devices? That's a
> crappy design... How many PCI devices don't have a BIOS?
Most PCI devices (installed in an Alpha :-) don't need their BIOS run;
can you think of devices other than VGA and SCSI where it's really
necessary? And most SCSI can deal with it *not* running, via some set
of defaults, I believe.
> Wouldn't the bios emulator be part of SRM? Is there anything I can do
> from the SRM to initialize the card?
Well, what Pete meant by "the firmware" _was_ SRM, and if he says the
BIOS emulator ain't there, he knows.
And no, I think you're going to have to have something like XFree86 do
the init, it's not really possible from SRM.
> > Your only hope is to somehow get the Xfree bios emulator to set up
> > the card properly. Last time I checked, their bios emulator still
> > depends on the previous firmware to have "done the right thing (tm)".
>
> XFree86 hangs on startup without ever doing anything to the screen.
> It does say:
> (WW) MGA(0): Video BIOS info block not detected!
Hmm; this is with XFree86 4.1.0-29.1, ie the latest available under
RH 7.2 for Alpha?
What does "lspci -v" show?
I've actually got one of those beasties, but I won't be able to commission
it until next week to look into this. Can you wait?
--Jay++
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Jay A Estabrook HPTC - LINUX support
Hewlett-Packard Company - MRO1-2/K15 (508) 467-2080
200 Forest Street, Marlboro MA 01752 Jay.Estabrook@hp.com
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