Return-Path: Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org via listexpand id S1761223AbXEVQfp (ORCPT ); Tue, 22 May 2007 12:35:45 -0400 Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org id S1759307AbXEVQfZ (ORCPT ); Tue, 22 May 2007 12:35:25 -0400 Received: from srv5.dvmed.net ([207.36.208.214]:52991 "EHLO mail.dvmed.net" rhost-flags-OK-OK-OK-OK) by vger.kernel.org with ESMTP id S1758993AbXEVQfY (ORCPT ); Tue, 22 May 2007 12:35:24 -0400 Message-ID: <46531BC7.9090608@garzik.org> Date: Tue, 22 May 2007 12:35:19 -0400 From: Jeff Garzik User-Agent: Thunderbird 1.5.0.10 (X11/20070302) MIME-Version: 1.0 To: Jon Smirl CC: Jesse Barnes , Alan Cox , Jesse Barnes , linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org, "Antonino A. Daplas" Subject: Re: [RFC] enhancing the kernel's graphics subsystem References: <200705171423.46748.jesse.barnes@intel.com> <200705220846.53664.jbarnes@virtuousgeek.org> <9e4733910705220902y151d1922s7e478de041062aa4@mail.gmail.com> <200705220915.50238.jbarnes@virtuousgeek.org> <9e4733910705220932x43e0e31bn39f7eb9223f3557e@mail.gmail.com> In-Reply-To: <9e4733910705220932x43e0e31bn39f7eb9223f3557e@mail.gmail.com> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Spam-Score: -4.3 (----) X-Spam-Report: SpamAssassin version 3.1.8 on srv5.dvmed.net summary: Content analysis details: (-4.3 points, 5.0 required) Sender: linux-kernel-owner@vger.kernel.org X-Mailing-List: linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org Content-Length: 1561 Lines: 39 Jon Smirl wrote: > On 5/22/07, Jesse Barnes wrote: >> On Tuesday, May 22, 2007, Jon Smirl wrote: >> > I've talked to an ATI engineer about VBIOS initialization. The chips >> > may have different steppings. They flash the right VBIOS that matches >> > the chip into the ROM on the card. Given all the various steppings >> > this is the only sane way to initialize the hardware. I don't believe >> > generic initialization code that can handle all of the various >> > steppings exists for any hardware. >> >> I think you must have misunderstood. Last time I worked on ATI, there >> was >> a single ROM image that supported several (maybe even all) of their addin >> cards. There's nothing magical about them... But that's beside the >> point. > > What about the poke the obscure value into this undocumented IO port > class of problem where they are using the chip test interface to work > around bugs in the silicon. > > He also mentioned that all of the OEMs change the standard ROM image > before loading it onto their cards to handle how they wired things up > and bugs in other chips. > > Of course I don't have the source for the ROM so I don't know the > accuracy of what I was told. There is nothing magic about a ROM. It's just software, or, often, data tables. Jeff - To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe linux-kernel" in the body of a message to majordomo@vger.kernel.org More majordomo info at http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html Please read the FAQ at http://www.tux.org/lkml/