RHEL / CentOS 5.3 never read MAC address on SiS 190/191 NIC

Oops........
This issue was reported for a while from my FAE.
The kernel of default RHEL 5.3 is v2.6.18........(WTF..)

I personally think that it's a bug of sis190.c driver but I don't have time to dig into the source code.
The NIC MAC address can not be read correctly from EEPROM.

I use sis190.c and mii.c from kernel v2.6.19.7 w/o any modification, and then compile them on RHEL 5.3.
Well, they still taint kernel a bit because no version magic.
But works well (so far..), and my MAC address of SiS 190/191 NIC was now detected.

Use root permission and just # modprobe -rfv sis190
Make mii.ko and sis190.ko by yourself. If you see warnings, forget about it now......
# install -m 644 *.ko /lib/modules/`uname -r`/kernel/drivers/net/
You can make a backup of original mii.ko and sis190.ko if you want.
# depmod -ae
# modprobe -fv sis190

Linux SiS 190/191 NIC lose traffic on 64bit kernel with 4GB RAM

SiS190.x driver got a bug on 64bit Linux kernel with 4GB RAM.
NIC can get IP via DHCP correctly but can not have any traffic any more...Orz

If you limit RAM size while bootup to "mem=3G", everything works fine ( Of course......XD ).

See this for bugzilla report: here.

I test the patch on Mandriva 2009.1 and it works.
But I never test it on Ubuntu or any other distro yet.
Here is the duplicated issue on launchpad for Ubuntu.



CM Linux is a small distro which is based and modified from Mandriva Linux......囧rz

clevo_laptop v1.0.0 is released

Finally, I uploaded the first release of Clevo ACPI WMI Linux kernel driver module to Sourceforge.net.
The release is clevo_laptop_1.0.0.tar.gz.

After a long time investigating of BIOS ASL code, I found so many bugs and NGs on their laptops.
For the ACPI supportinf about Linux.
Even I have told them, the BIOS engineers, no body gives a shit about my opinion........

Will keep developing this kernel module to support Linux on Clevo platform as much as possible.
('Cauz BIOS guys don't want to pay efforts to Linux, this is not listed in their spec........)

R.I.P - King of Pop - Michael Jackson 1958-2009

OMG, this morning I got a bad news that a most widely famous artist - Michael Jackson just past away!

I got almost all his albums that I can bought here.
Since Off the wall, Thriller, Bad, Dangerous, History, Scream, Invincible...etc.
Of course, too many songs he performed can be classics..

Q__Q..

I will miss you, Michael.
I will miss your dancing.
I will miss the performance you made with Slash.

You are always the best!

SourceForge clevo-extra project kick-off

It is a milestone for myself...;-)

• Project UNIX name : clevo-extra
• Registered : 2009-06-11 10:17

http://sourceforge.net/projects/clevo-extra

Compiling SiS X driver on Mandriva 2009.1

Based on this one, I also try to compile and install SiS X driver on Mandriva 2009.1.
Of course I have to install some additional packages.
Use urpmi and all related sw automatically:

Xorg X server is v1.6.1.

1. binutils;
2. make;
3. libxorg-x11-devel;
4. xorg-x11 (this is a meta package);
5. xorg-x11-xvfb (I think this one is optional..);

BTW, I try it on a small distro called Caixa Magica 12.
Can compile and install 'cause it's a Mandriva-based distro.

Compiling SiS X driver on Ubuntu 9.04

I got new verison of SiS Linux X driver which fixed some bugs and the AUO panel issue.
And again, I have to verify it for our company's product on Ubuntu 9.04 first.
(Company decision........)

Xorg X server is v1.6.0 on Ubuntu 9.04.

Well, some packages I need to install to compile the SiS X driver source code:
1. xserver-xorg-dev;
2. x11proto-*-dev; (Lazy, so I install them all......)
3. libdrm-dev;
4. libgl1-mesa-dev;
5. build-essential; (This is ur call..)

And, of course, ./configure; make, then you can find the driver sis_drv.so under ./src/.libs/.
Nothing special.

Next I have to verify it on Mandriva 2009.1 also.

Inside the Linux reboot.c of kernel 2.6.25

I got a bug report from one of my customer, they said system hang up after issuing reboot command if using T3400 CPU...= =|||

I can duplicate this issue and I think it is a BIOS bug on our product, because I saw this issue before BIOS POST.

After confirm with our BIOS team members and we use 80 port debug card to see what is going on. We know that BIOS team need to modify their watchdog to monitor this kind of problem......They need to know some information to catch for the system reboot. In Windows, they can monitor it because system will write 0xfe to 0x64. I believe that Linux will do something smiliar to this but I can not figure it out in kernel 2.6.24.7 source code under arch/x86/kernel/reboot_*.c...

Well, starting from Linux kernel 2.6.25, there is only ONE reboot.c under arch/x86/kernel, and they do change some points in the code.

In arch/x86/kernel/reboot.c and line 367 we can see the code:
outb(0xfe, 0x64); /* pulse reset low */

This function is defined in arch/x86/boot/boot.h.

囧rz..
This means that system will do basic port I/O to write to port 0x64 with value 0xfe when system is going to reboot. Bingo! So our BIOS team will be very happy with it........'cause they now can do something to their cute dog........

Another interesting point is that BIOS can detect memory address 0x472 to know this is a warm or cold reboot we want. If the reboot mode is 0x1234 that is a warm reboot. If reboot mode is 0 that is cold reboot...;-)

BTW, this is my desktop wallpaper recently...;-)
And I want to say that openSUSE rocks!!
Also the president Ma of TW rocks!!

This hot girl is named 王思平 and she is a famous model of TW!!
I personally love her bott....XD