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Author Topic: Strange bios warning for TC64  (Read 2843 times)

Offline PDP-8

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Strange bios warning for TC64
« on: May 25, 2019, 06:58:25 AM »
Just ran across something weird with modern 64 bit hardware and TC64 / Xfbdev - a bizarre hybrid UEFI only boot, and Legacy video!

Doesn't appear to be a TC problem, but a specific hardware bios weirdness that I'll have to figure out. :)

Running UEFI only in bios to take advantage of speedup of Xfbdev:

Intel NUC - 64 bit of course.  TC64 ISO burned with GPT / Uefi only

Expected response.  Grub splash screen, and boots into my native resolution.  Terminal is mostly responsive.  Basically works.  vga bootcode ignored of course.

Modern "mini-pc", also 64 bit.  Same iso flash drive for boot.
When set for UEFI only in bios, boots to just a gray screen.  AMI bios circa 2017.

BUT, when set for UEFI boot, the only way for it to finish is a bios option for "legacy video".

WEIRD HYBRID bios!

So now it boots from a gpt format (uefi specific) TC64 flash drive, but it only boots up in the CSM/Legacy video mode!  Which makes dragging a terminal around dead-slow unusable. :)  No grub flash.  But obeys vga modes.

Temporary solution:
Since the strange mini-pc only has 2gb ram max onboard, fell back to 32-bit TinyCore and put bios into legacy mode all the way.  I'm not really missing anything with only 2gb on board and 32 bit kernel.

Told it to use the native resolution, and my combo of the Urxvt terminal, DejaVu ttf fonts, and tweaks to .Xdefaults and looks absolutely great in Vesa.  Amazed that Vesa hasn't gone away yet and is still supported in this circa 2017 box.

Just thought I'd point this out not so much as a TC problem, but just something funky I found in the field with TC64 and trying to do UEFI only.  Don't abandon your 32 bit boot disks just yet. :)
That's a UNIX book! - cool  -- Garth