Re: Linux 2.5.51

[James Simmons]

> How well does this driver work if you don't have a firmware
> driver initialize the card? aka a pci option ROM.
>
> I am interested because with LinuxBIOS it is still a pain to run
> PCI option roms, and I don't necessarily even have then if it a
> motherboard with video.  There are some embedded/non-x86 platforms
> with similar issues.
>
> My primary interest is in the cheap ATI Rage XL chip that is on many
> server board. PCI Vendor/device  id 1002:4752 (rev 27) from lspci.
>
> If nothing else if some one could point me to some resources on
> how to get the appropriate documentation from the video chipset
> manufacturers I would be happy.
>
> But I did want to at least point that running a system with out bios
> initialized video was certainly among the cases that are used.

Unfortunely ATI doesn't like to release info on what needs to be done to
initialize without frimware. I really wish this was the case. I did see
email back about someone getting a mach64 card working without firmware.
They used a bus analysiser to do this. I will see what kind of patches I
can dig up.