2007-05-02 07:46:13

by Martin Mares

[permalink] [raw]
Subject: Re: arch/i386/boot rewrite, and all the hard-coded video cards

Hi!

> I mean the SVGA chip-specific code.

Feel free to kill it, anybody using these cards is very unlikely to run
a 2.6.x kernel.

However, the BIOS mode switching is still useful.

Have a nice fortnight
--
Martin `MJ' Mares <[email protected]> http://mj.ucw.cz/
Faculty of Math and Physics, Charles University, Prague, Czech Rep., Earth
Hi! I'm a .signature virus! Copy me into your ~/.signature to help me spread!


2007-05-02 09:28:08

by Andi Kleen

[permalink] [raw]
Subject: Re: arch/i386/boot rewrite, and all the hard-coded video cards

On Wednesday 02 May 2007 09:46:07 Martin Mares wrote:
> Hi!
>
> > I mean the SVGA chip-specific code.
>
> Feel free to kill it, anybody using these cards is very unlikely to run
> a 2.6.x kernel.

I agree; that code can all go.

What also seems to miss are the early CPUID checks I recently added
and which x86-64 has for some time.

Also if you ever add x86-64 support it does an additional BIOS
call to tell the BIOS it is 64bit.

-Andi

2007-05-02 19:05:10

by Lennart Sorensen

[permalink] [raw]
Subject: Re: arch/i386/boot rewrite, and all the hard-coded video cards

On Wed, May 02, 2007 at 09:46:07AM +0200, Martin Mares wrote:
> > I mean the SVGA chip-specific code.
>
> Feel free to kill it, anybody using these cards is very unlikely to run
> a 2.6.x kernel.
>
> However, the BIOS mode switching is still useful.

I have a 486 with a Mach64 in it running 2.6.18, so well, it just might
happen you know. I do tend to run it plain 80x25 at the moment, but
that is mainly because it is just doing firewall duties. I never was
very impressed by the mach64 fb driver when I played with it years ago,
and vesa isn't an option on that card (needed a DOS TSR to do that).

Not sure if that card is covered by any of the chip specific code.

So what is wrong with a 15 year old machine when it has 48MB ram and
18GB disk space?

--
Len Sorensen

2007-05-02 20:50:11

by H. Peter Anvin

[permalink] [raw]
Subject: Re: arch/i386/boot rewrite, and all the hard-coded video cards

Andi Kleen wrote:
>
> I agree; that code can all go.
>
> What also seems to miss are the early CPUID checks I recently added
> and which x86-64 has for some time.
>
> Also if you ever add x86-64 support it does an additional BIOS
> call to tell the BIOS it is 64bit.
>

Will do. I'd like to make this code unified between i386 and x86-64.

-hpa

2007-05-03 02:16:19

by H. Peter Anvin

[permalink] [raw]
Subject: Re: arch/i386/boot rewrite, and all the hard-coded video cards

Andi Kleen wrote:
>
> I agree; that code can all go.
>
> What also seems to miss are the early CPUID checks I recently added
> and which x86-64 has for some time.
>

I probably need to rebase against your tree. It makes more sense, anyway.

Either way, I just added a pretty decent framework for testing the CPU
features and barfing if they're missing.

> Also if you ever add x86-64 support it does an additional BIOS
> call to tell the BIOS it is 64bit.

Added.

-hpa