[MinnowBoard] 64-bit vs 32-bit UEFI - What you need to know!

Ferchu R chamac2 at gmail.com
Fri Sep 12 16:26:02 UTC 2014


Hi Darrent:

Unfortunately my development work implies to work with a third party
library that is only available (at least for now) in 32 bit. So there is
not choice for me. By the way, I tried to boot the old Minnow's SD with the
new MAX. It hangs when it asks for Angstrom login.

Thanks.

2014-09-12 10:26 GMT-05:00 Darren Hart <dvhart at linux.intel.com>:

> This was one of the more difficult issues with MinnowBoard 1. It was 32b
> EFI, and there were no common distros that supported it out of the box. Is
> there a reason you want to use 32b? I confess I can't think of reason to
> sacrifice the extra registers and instructions when the system has more
> than 1GB of memory and gobs of permanent storage.
>
> --
> Darren Hart Open Source Technology Center
> darren.hart at intel.com             Intel Corporation
>
> From: Ferchu R <chamac2 at gmail.com>
> Reply-To: MinnowBoard Development and Community Discussion <
> elinux-minnowboard at lists.elinux.org>
> Date: Friday, September 12, 2014 at 8:16
> To: MinnowBoard Development and Community Discussion <
> elinux-minnowboard at lists.elinux.org>
>
> Subject: Re: [MinnowBoard] 64-bit vs 32-bit UEFI - What you need to know!
>
> I was wondering if somebody knows what distro has a 32 bit EFI compatible
> image.
>
> 2014-09-11 20:54 GMT-05:00 Hawley, John <john.hawley at intel.com>:
>
>> I agree, I’ve seen it a couple of times.  What happens is:
>>
>>
>>
>> 1)      Flash happens
>>
>> 2)      Flash program goes to reboot the board (gives a couple second
>> timeout, then screen goes blank)
>>
>> 3)      Sometimes it looks like it can’t call the shutdown cleanly then
>> both D1 and D1 end up staying on
>>
>>
>>
>> When I’m back in the office on Monday (I’m heading to the Albuquerque
>> Maker Faire right now to show off a bunch of MinnowBoard MAX stuff), I’ll
>> try the conversion and see what happens.  If I can replicate the issue I’ll
>> bug the firmware team about it and see if they can root cause, and fix that.
>>
>>
>>
>> Glad you are back up and running though, I know exactly how iffy
>> upgrading firmware can be, and it’s always frustrating when you have to
>> reach for the external firmware flasher.  I know CircuitCo has a small
>> board to help deal with external flashing in development, hopefully that
>> will be out soon to help alleviate people’s fears of playing with the
>> firmware!
>>
>>
>>
>> - John
>>
>>
>>
>> *From:* elinux-minnowboard-bounces at lists.elinux.org [mailto:
>> elinux-minnowboard-bounces at lists.elinux.org] *On Behalf Of *Ferchu R
>> *Sent:* Thursday, September 11, 2014 6:45 PM
>>
>> *To:* MinnowBoard Development and Community Discussion
>> *Subject:* Re: [MinnowBoard] 64-bit vs 32-bit UEFI - What you need to
>> know!
>>
>>
>>
>> Hi John
>>
>>
>> Thanks, It worked. I think the firware update should end gracefully. A
>> black screen when flashing firmware makes anyone nervous.
>>
>>
>>
>> 2014-09-11 20:33 GMT-05:00 Hawley, John <john.hawley at intel.com>:
>>
>> Well getting into firmware menu is a good sign J
>>
>>
>>
>> http://elinux.org/Minnowboard:MaxBios#Change_Boot_Order
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> You should be able to see “Boot Maintenance Manager”, with the 4th
>> option being “Change Boot Order”, you should be able to “<EFI Internal
>> Shell>” (hit enter, + it to the top, hit enter) and commit the changes back
>> to get back to the shell, and get your install going.
>>
>>
>>
>> If that doesn’t work, let me know here and we’ll see what is going on.
>>
>>
>>
>> - John
>>
>>
>>
>> *From:*elinux-minnowboard-bounces at lists.elinux.org [mailto:
>> elinux-minnowboard-bounces at lists.elinux.org] *On Behalf Of *Ferchu R
>> *Sent:* Thursday, September 11, 2014 6:26 PM
>> *To:* MinnowBoard Development and Community Discussion
>> *Subject:* Re: [MinnowBoard] 64-bit vs 32-bit UEFI - What you need to
>> know!
>>
>>
>>
>> So I FOLLOWED the procedure to pass from 64 to 32. I think the system
>> filled 2 lines of dots, when the screen goes black. I waited about a half
>> hour but there was no sign of new action, so I tried to reboot. Now the
>> board has not EUFI Shell. But it does have setup, where the third line says
>> it is MNW2CRB1.86C.0071.R30.1408131324. I was wondering what coused this,
>> and how I get the board on work again?.
>>
>> Thanks
>>
>>
>>
>> 2014-09-10 13:04 GMT-05:00 Hawley, John <john.hawley at intel.com>:
>>
>> I think there's some value in being explicit or otherwise we'll actually
>> cause confusion.  I.E. when you download the firmware and people see
>> 32-bit vs. 64-bit firmware in the same place will they always flash the
>> right one?  Part of the problem is there is no UI to these firmware
>> flashers, they are command line utilities.
>>
>> - John
>>
>>
>> On Wed, 2014-09-10 at 13:18 -0400, Adam Goode wrote:
>> > I see the zip files already contain both EFI binaries. Assuming the
>> > firmware updaters present some firmware selection UI, the
>> > simplification I can see here is consolidating by putting both
>> > firmware files into the same zip file. You could go further and
>> > combine the release and debug versions as well, but that might be
>> > unnecessary.
>> >
>> >
>> > Thanks,
>> >
>> > Adam
>> >
>> >
>> > On Wed, Sep 10, 2014 at 11:45 AM, Darren Hart <dvhart at linux.intel.com>
>> wrote:
>> > > On 9/10/14, 8:22, "Adam Goode" <adam at spicenitz.org> wrote:
>> > >
>> > >>Does this mean that both files can just be put into place? If so,
>> > >>could you update the distribution to include both and not worry about
>> > >>what the current firmware is? It would simplify the process and
>> > >>documentation.
>> > >
>> > > That strikes me as a pretty good suggestion.
>> > >
>> > > --
>> > > Darren
>> > >
>> > >>
>> > >>
>> > >>Adam
>> > >>
>> > >>
>> > >>On Wed, Sep 10, 2014 at 11:08 AM, Darren Hart <dvhart at linux.intel.com
>> >
>> > >>wrote:
>> > >>> On 9/10/14, 1:35, "Roel Jordans" <r.jordans at tue.nl> wrote:
>> > >>>
>> > >>>>
>> > >>>>>
>> > >>>>>
>> http://www.elinux.org/Minnowboard:MaxBios#Switching_from_64-bit_to_32-b
>> > >>>>>it
>> > >>>>>
>> > >>>>> Basically you have to re-flash the firmware with a 32-bit
>> firmware.
>> > >>>>> There's a line in the instructions that may confuse some folks,
>> > >>>>> specifically using a FirmwareUpdateX64.efi to flash a 32-bit
>> firmware.
>> > >>>>> This is because when you go to change the firmware you are
>> running a
>> > >>>>> 64-bit firmware, and therefore need a 64-bit EFI program to
>> actually
>> > >>>>>do
>> > >>>>> the flashing.
>> > >>>>>
>> > >>>>> If you want to switch back, you'll do the opposite, use
>> > >>>>> FirmwareUpdateIA32.efi to flash a 64-bit firmware.
>> > >>>>>
>> > >>>>
>> > >>>>Maybe it's possible to rename those updates (or add some renamed
>> > >>>>updates) to something like FirmwareUpdateIA32to64 or something?
>> That
>> > >>>>would probably remove most of the cause for confusion here.
>> > >>>
>> > >>> That isn't accurate unfortunately. The update tool doesn't care
>> which
>> > >>>bit
>> > >>> length you are flashing to, you use the same tool to flash to 32b
>> or to
>> > >>> 64b, what matters is what firmware you are currently running, and
>> that
>> > >>>is
>> > >>> what the tool name reflects.
>> > >>>
>> > >>> --
>> > >>> Darren Hart                                     Open Source
>> Technology
>> > >>>Center
>> > >>> darren.hart at intel.com                                       Intel
>> > >>>Corporation
>> > >>>
>> > >>>
>> > >>>
>> > >>> _______________________________________________
>> > >>> elinux-MinnowBoard mailing list
>> > >>> elinux-MinnowBoard at lists.elinux.org
>> > >>> http://lists.elinux.org/mailman/listinfo/elinux-minnowboard
>> > >>_______________________________________________
>> > >>elinux-MinnowBoard mailing list
>> > >>elinux-MinnowBoard at lists.elinux.org
>> > >>http://lists.elinux.org/mailman/listinfo/elinux-minnowboard
>> > >>
>> > >
>> > >
>> > > --
>> > > Darren Hart                                     Open Source
>> Technology Center
>> > > darren.hart at intel.com                                       Intel
>> Corporation
>> > >
>> > >
>> > >
>> > > _______________________________________________
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>> > > elinux-MinnowBoard at lists.elinux.org
>> > > http://lists.elinux.org/mailman/listinfo/elinux-minnowboard
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>>
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