Subject: Re: sparc64 w /PCI
To: Miles Nordin <carton@Ivy.NET>
From: Michael <macallan1888@gmail.com>
List: port-sparc64
Date: 06/09/2006 16:06:22
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Hello,

> non-openboot PCI video cards on sparc64?  really?

Yes, I ran  my U10 triple-head with an ffb, onboard Rage Pro and a 
PCish Millennium II.
Needs some hacking though since by default XFree mmap()s everything 
through /dev/ttyE0 which only 'sees' the console device.

> I thought there were problems both with XFree86/Xorg locating the card 
> without an
> OpenPROM node,

Not at all.
XFree or xorg don't know about OBP or OF, they just use the operating 
system to scan PCI buses and find their devices that way. No need for 
ROMs anywhere.
You only need ROMs for devices that should be configured and used by 
OF, like the primary video card or SCSI or IDE controllers you want to 
boot from. ( SymBIOS 53c8xx based cards are an exception, the Sun 
firmware supports them directly )

>  and then even more fundamental problems that full
> bootup-initialization code for modern video cards is contained only in
> the x86 ROM and in the proprietary Linux .o XFree86/Xorg module

XFree has an x86 emulator for exactly this purpose - to run a card's PC 
firmware and cold boot it.

have fun
Michael
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