A cautionary recount; ..'then powerdown your machine and short the jumpers
to reset the cmos settings..blablabla. You can then restart your machine,
and..'
Wait for eternity at a blacksceen ;) If that wasn't work enough, old
pal Murphey had the last laugh...although I did first copy the original
bios image to floppy, and then break to check the filesize/copy, I erred
in that I did not take that opportunity (before rendering it brainless) to
copy said image from the floppy onto harddrive....if I had, I might have
discovered the read/write error earlier..<sigh> Subsequently removing the
board from the case, a sticker on the bottom of the mainboard was noticed
to be peeling off..been there for as long as 'security sticker'..I decided
to help it off. *That* uncovered the word ELPINA etched into the board.
This board is visibly *identical* to a PCChips M520 _except_ for the
battery holder. I should have viewed this clue with more heed.
If I can get a bios image, I'll recover from this ...I've contacted the
manuf. in this regard already, but be careful if you attempt this bios
upgrading by flashing a new image in. It's very much not a trivial thing.
Needing a quick replacement, I homed in on an ASUS-SP97-V. This one got my
choice...if not only for price, but in consideration of the fact that the
onboard videochipset does a couple of nice 60Khz syncmodes..and maybe this
might drive my tektronix fixed_sync...if there's any X support for the SiS
5598 that is. Apparently, this support is tagged as in the >next< release
of X.
The asus/sis combo seems to work fine..albeit with one minor quirk,
my PR166 now identifies as a PR90...which is kinda weird but it seems to
be running measurably cooler in the case, and feels as quick as it was
before.
To any who still think the idea of these motherboards being designed in
consideration of win95 to be a rumour....check again. It's not hard to see
why linux attempts to be bios independant, as a lot of bios updates that
detail what the update actually addresses, discloses a lot of things
'fixed' in consideration if win95 compatibility/install issues.
I asked the question myself...when are, say, motherboard
manufacturers going to sport the "LINUX COMPATIBLE" sticker.
Do they even know what we want?? And what is it that would make an ideal
linux motherboard anyhow?? Some interactive bios that works without all
the patches for win95 compatibility issues maybe? Or maybe a bios tailored
specifically for linux users of whatever model board they carry? I think
we'd all agree, if a big PC board company got down and did something like
this..which seems fairly easy in my own head...would they not sell a
mountain of the things to an already captive audience? (caveat; if priced
competitively...I think ppl would gladly pay a *few* extra $$$ for the
comfort)
Why can I find no movement in this area? It might be unimportant
considering the compatibility <generally> evident with current production,
but perhaps if we all pestered a specific company interested in these
lines, and tell them what we would like.....in as much as, would there be
anything to be gained by HAVING a reliable bios to reference?
Have I missed the point here, or *would* there be some interesting
changes that would benefit running linux on an ix86 architecture made just
for that job...ie; something that wouldn't load .or .run . win95 say.
Would our life be any easier for something other than PnP to deal with for
instance? Not that you'd want to reinvent the wheel, but it seems to me
there is a definate quota value of market here already, which is what
you'd need to justify something like this.
Or does something like this, stab at the core issues of linux's
portability? OR is it just a waste of time thinking about this?
Cheers!
Db
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