[GSoC] End user flash tool – week #6

Hello again! During week 6 I worked on two things:

  • functional tests of libflashrom on T60
  • GUI improvements – filtering and searching list of supported hardware
TESTING LIBFLASHROM

For testing I used Lenovo T60 with Macronix chip and Raspberry Pi. I connected to the chip with SOIC clip and attached it to Raspberry SPI. I needed to disassemble my laptop almost completely because on T60 BIOS chip is blocked by a magnesium frame which must be removed. It is important for me to have easier access to the chip without disassembling everything every time so  I removed a part of frame that covered the chip.

t60_SOIC

Tested functions:

  • fl_flash_probe: function returns proper flash context if we provide a specific chip as its argument, if we probe for all known chips and there are multiple chips found (like in Lenovo T60 with Macronix chip) correct error code is returned (I also needed to implement a way to output multiple flash chips to GUI and then select a proper one, I will describe it in my next post).
  • fl_image_read: correct data is loaded to buffer
  • fl_flash_erase:  chip has been properly erased
  • fl_image_verify: verification succeeded
  • fl_image_write: data has been correctly written on the chip
filtering and searching supported hardware

It is possible now to find a specific chip, board or chipset on the list by selecting filtering options like vendor, size or test status. You can also search by entering a name of a particular hardware (or part of a name). I plan to extend this screen and provide more filtering options when I will finish implementing higher priority features like automating a process of creating a working coreboot image and checking hardware compatibility.

supported_hardware