Why HP won't upgrade BIOS for Linux???

JD_5 · ‎04-18-2002

Its been quite some time that
the Intel i830 chipset has been
out and it has been quite obvious
that the present bios in a number of HP models (ie. xe3-gf) do not
work with the present BIOS for
Linux!

Why does HP not:
--------------------

a) Fix this problem
b) respond in any way to this
problem?

I like HP products but because of
this issue I am being forced to
warn people away from buying
these products.

Please don't respond to this by
linking the driver upgrade site.

Alexander M. Ermes · ‎04-18-2002

Hi there.
A BIOS upgarde is not, what you are looking for
( i think ).
What you need is drivers for the different parts of your computer ( mobo chipset, graphics card etc ). Linux does not care for the BIOS that much. I have Linux running on dozemds of machines of various types without a problem ( 386, 486, Pentium I, Pentium II, AMD K5, K6, K7, Socket A Athlons etc ) with partially parts, that could belong to a computer musuem.

The BIOS works as follows :
It loads a basic operating system for a minimum set of devices ( floppy, harddrive, display adapter ) from the boot roms.
If problems appear at boot time, you should check your hardware.

If you have problems after booting, then Linux does not support a specific part of your computer ( drivers for this part ). This problem mostly appears with brandnew parts like Geforce 4 adapters etc.
For older parts it should be ok.

Rgds
Alexander M. Ermes

.. and all these memories are going to vanish like tears in the rain! final words from Rutger Hauer in "Blade Runner"

JD_5 · ‎04-19-2002

Thank you for the reply, but coming from the chipmakers
mouth (ie. Intel) a BIOS update
is exactly what I need. This is a
well known problem with the BIOS.

This is a link directly from Intel.
Please read the section under BIOS.
http://support.intel.com/support/graphics/intel830m/tti013.htm

Its a problem with the
i830 chipset for the x3e-gf. The
chipset needs 8Mb of stolen memory to work properly however
the cheap BIOS only supports 1Mb.
And no option to change this.

Please do not reply to this post
unless you are someone from HP.

This is not a question of how do I
fix this, its a question of when
will the people responsible
fix it?

Tomas Edwardsson · ‎05-30-2002

Is there no news on this, I'm having the same problem on a xt6050. I'm quite sure this is the BIOS problem.

Tomas Edwardsson