flashrom/README

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flashrom README
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flashrom is a utility for detecting, reading, writing, verifying and erasing
flash chips. It is often used to flash BIOS/EFI/coreboot/firmware images
in-system using a supported mainboard, but it also supports flashing of network
cards (NICs), SATA controller cards, and other external devices which can
program flash chips.

It supports a wide range of flash chips (most commonly found in SOIC8, DIP8,
SOIC16, WSON8, PLCC32, DIP32, TSOP32, and TSOP40 packages), which use various
protocols such as LPC, FWH, parallel flash, or SPI.

Do not use flashrom on laptops (yet)! The embedded controller (EC) present in
many laptops might interact badly with any attempts to communicate with the
flash chip and may brick your laptop.

Please make a backup of your flash chip before writing to it.

Please see the flashrom(8) manpage.


Packaging
---------

To package flashrom and remove dependencies on subversion, either use
make export
or
make tarball

make export will export all flashrom files from the subversion repository at
revision BASE into a directory named $EXPORTDIR/flashrom-$VERSION-r$SVNREVISION
and will additionally modify the Makefile in that directory to contain the svn
revision of the exported tree.

make tarball will simply tar up the result of make export and gzip compress it.

The snapshot tarballs are the result of make tarball and require no further
processing.


Build Instructions
------------------

To build flashrom you need to install the following software:

 * pciutils+libpci (if you want support for mainboard or PCI device flashing)
 * libusb (if you want FT2232, Dediprog or USB-Blaster support)
 * libftdi (if you want FT2232 or USB-Blaster support)

Linux et al:

 * pciutils / libpci
 * pciutils-devel / pciutils-dev / libpci-dev
 * zlib-devel / zlib1g-dev (needed if libpci was compiled with libz support)

On FreeBSD, you need the following ports:

 * devel/gmake
 * devel/libpci

On OpenBSD, you need the following ports:

 * devel/gmake
 * sysutils/pciutils

To compile on Linux, use:

 make

To compile on FreeBSD, OpenBSD or DragonFly BSD, use:

 gmake

To compile on Nexenta, use:

 make

To compile on Solaris, use:

 gmake LDFLAGS="-L$pathtolibpci" CC="gcc -I$pathtopciheaders" CFLAGS=-O2

To compile on NetBSD (with pciutils, libftdi, libusb installed in /usr/pkg/), use:

 gmake

To compile and run on Darwin/Mac OS X:

 Install DirectHW from coresystems GmbH.
 DirectHW is available at http://www.coreboot.org/DirectHW .

To cross-compile on Linux for DOS:

 Get packages of the DJGPP cross compiler and install them:
 djgpp-filesystem djgpp-gcc djgpp-cpp djgpp-runtime djgpp-binutils
 As an alternative, the DJGPP web site offers packages for download as well:
 djcross-binutils-2.19.1-10ap.i386.rpm
 djcross-gcc-4.3.2-8ap.i686.rpm
 djcrx-2.04pre_20090725-13ap.i386.rpm
 The cross toolchain packages for your distribution may have slightly different
 names (look for packages named *djgpp*).

 You will need the following library source trees containing their compiled
 static libraries either in the parent directory of the flashrom source or
 specify the base folder on compile time with the LIBS_BASE parameter.
 The default as described above is equal to calling
   'make djgpp-dos LIBS_BASE=..'

 To get and build said libraries...
 Download pciutils 3.1.5 and apply http://flashrom.org/File:Pciutils.patch.gz
 Compile pciutils, see README.DJGPP for instructions.
 Download and compile http://flashrom.org/File:Libgetopt.tar.gz
 Enter the flashrom directory.
 Run either (change settings where appropriate)
 make CC=i586-pc-msdosdjgpp-gcc STRIP=i586-pc-msdosdjgpp-strip
 or (above settings hardcoded)
 make djgpp-dos
 To run flashrom.exe, download http://flashrom.org/File:Csdpmi7b.zip and
 unpack CWSDPMI.EXE into the current directory or one in PATH.

To cross-compile on Linux for Windows:

 Get packages of the MinGW cross compiler and install them:
 mingw32-filesystem mingw32-cross-cpp mingw32-cross-binutils mingw32-cross-gcc
 mingw32-runtime mingw32-headers
 The cross toolchain packages for your distribution may have slightly different
 names (look for packages named *mingw*).
 PCI-based programmers (internal etc.) are not supported on Windows.
 Run (change CC= and STRIP= settings where appropriate)
 make CC=i686-w64-mingw32-gcc STRIP=i686-w64-mingw32-strip

Processor architecture dependent features:

 On non-x86 architectures a few programmers don't work (yet) because they
 use port-based I/O which is not directly available on non-x86. Those
 programmers will be disabled automatically if you run "make".

Installation
------------

In order to install flashrom and the manpage into /usr/local, type:

 make install

For installation in a different directory use DESTDIR, e.g. like this:

 make DESTDIR=/usr install

If you have insufficient permissions for the destination directory, use sudo
by adding sudo in front of the commands above.


Contact
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The official flashrom website is:

  http://www.flashrom.org/

The IRC channel is

  #flashrom at irc.freenode.net

The mailing list address is

  flashrom@flashrom.org