KGPE-d16 board status : untested

[tlaurion]

Work done under #1378 has not been tested under that board.
Meaning that it is not expected that a flat framebuffer is passed through kexec.

Interesting enough, this board is 5.10.5 linux based for a while.
Seems like users of that board are ok not having no vga until kexec'ed OS is initializing kernel.

Unfortunately, my kgpe-d16 doesn't boot anymore, looping into coreboot raminit.

Someone else still using that board under Heads? (Tagging per #692 board owners)
@0rb677 @Tonux599 @zifxify @blobless ?

[Tonux599]

Hi @tlaurion, long time no speak and I hope your well.

This message comes at a convenient time actually as I have recently starting using Heads again after about an 8 month hiatus due to employment requirements.

I installed heads on my KGPE-D16 at commit 77b5933 a couple of weeks ago. Using kgpe-d16_workstation and injected some GPU firmware files into the initrd for amdgpu module.

One thing that was worth noting was the internal flash was not working, so could not add my GPG/PGP keys the Heads way. I didn't investigate too much but the "flashing" progress bar just did not progress over many minutes. I resolved it by adding the pubring and trustdb with cbfs tool outside of heads and flashing again.

Re the PR above, my install is older than when it was merged. My system has the onboard VGA disabled via the header and Linux inits the GPU and the GUI renders okay.

I would also be keen to see Dasharo used for KGPE-D16 in Heads too. I see you have draft PR #1303 open which I'll try and have a play with at some point.

My ability to test is however restrained by time, lack of DIP8 chips (I'll buy some spares at somepoint) and that it's my main workhorse. So generally, testing for me would be flash a chip, turn off my main computer, swap, test real quick, swap back and report. I'm hesitant to test too deeply / commit myself on my primary system.

I'll ping you a message / comment here when I've restocked and if there is anything I can do let me know 🙂

[tlaurion]

One thing that was worth noting was the internal flash was not working, so could not add my GPG/PGP keys the Heads way. I didn't investigate too much but the "flashing" progress bar just did not progress over many minutes. I resolved it by adding the pubring and trustdb with cbfs tool outside of heads and flashing again.

You mean flashrom used under heads master or dasharo/flashrom?
Both are supposed to work AFAIK, unfortunately my kgpe-d16 has some issue, either CPU/RAM after long storage....
If it could boot, I would test myself but it loops on raminit

[tlaurion]

I didn't investigate too much but the "flashing" progress bar just did not progress over many minutes.

@Tonux599 flash.sh, called by flash-gui.sh, is drawing progress from flashrom -V output in a file.

@Tonux599 It would be nice to just have output from flashrom -p internal -w /path/to/ROM to see what is happening there (pointed commit is still coreboot 4.11 and old flashrom, where patch is for flashing bmc. Would love to know what is happening there).

[build-cool91]

@tlaurion Hello, I have a KGPE-D16 board with a few extra chips for testing and although I'm not an expert but would be happy to help out. What can I do?

@Tonux599 I haven't gotten Heads to work on my system yet with the most recent build. I also have an AMD dGPU, could you share additional details?

[tlaurion]

@build-cool91 hey there! Nice to see you around!

First thing first can you share the filename of the firmware image you built/downloaded so we are sure of what code we are talking about?

Building that Biard ils known to work on debian-10.

If you attempted to boot from the platform spi chip, you could as well share a post-boot attempt backup of the firmware image of the SPI, since cbmem log is written in the ROM. I might be able to get some information from your ROM ans diagnose the issue or at least have a beginning of an understanding of what is the problem for you.

You can contact me through matrix at @insurgo:matrix.org

[build-cool91]

Thanks...been lurking in the Qubes forum for long time and follow this repo but didn't know how I could contribute. Glad some testing on my end may help others :D

Awesome, PMd you on Matrix.

[tlaurion]

A thread on matrix opened pointing here at https://matrix.to/#/!pAlHOfxQNPXOgFGTmo:matrix.org/$7E8X1kk38SYY3XcZX2L0ukoio_NGcJLeTQ9x_BEqK3M?via=matrix.org&via=nitro.chat&via=fairydust.space

[tlaurion]

Crosslinking to #1421

[Tickmeister1]

Good news! Did some more tinkering with my rev 1.03G KGPE-D16. Heads-v0.2.0-1713-g06b1b09 starts into the menus. My boot drive is an NVME, so I will have to test booting from USB. Stay tuned.

[Tickmeister1]

It will boot from USB. (PureOS 10.3). Fans 100%.

Odd behavior, it won't cold boot after shutdown unless I remove and reapply mains power. Board currently has ASMB4 BMC installed with original propriety firmware, so perhaps it is interfering. Would you like me to compile and test the other heads variants?

[Tickmeister1]

Tested heads internal flashrom: success.
Flashrom -p internal found my Winbond W25Q128 and wrote a testbackup.rom at /tmp

[tlaurion]

Wow. That was unexpected. So you need nvme support under workstation?

[Tickmeister1]

Ultimately, I would like NVME support under both workstation and server. Intent is to boot from nvme and assign the sata controller to an hvm in qubes.