Install Canoeboot on ASUS KFSN4-DRE

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Download from release

Build from source

./mk -b coreboot asus_kfsn4_dre_1mb

Replacable and upgradeble flash chip sizes possible, if done, adjust the 2mb to it

The flash might not be protected, possibly installable from vendor firmware.

Backup and install according to the guide

If it is protected, follow the instructions below.

The basic guide is not enough for this board, read the full guide as well.

Physically backup up vendor firmware

Dumping the factory bios, then hot-swapping the flash to keep to flash Canoeboot on it, and keep the original too.

Form factor

• SSI EEB 3.61 (12“x13”)

Flash chips

These boards use LPC flash (not SPI), in a PLCC socket. The default flash size 1MiB (8Mbits), and can be upgraded to 2MiB (16Mbits). SST49LF080A is the default that the board uses. SST49LF016C is an example of a 2MiB (16Mbits) chip, which might work. It is believed that 2MiB (16Mbits) is the maximum size available for the flash chip.

DO NOT hot-swap the chip with your bare hands. Use a PLCC chip extractor. These can be found online. See http://www.coreboot.org/Developer_Manual/Tools#Chip_removal_tools

Hex-core CPUs support

PCB revision 1.05G is the latest version of this board and the best one (the revision number is be printed on the board), if you want to use dual hex-core CPUs (Opteron 2400/8400 series), though only two board configurations are believed to support them. Other revisions are believed to only support dual quad-core CPUs.

To be sure your board supports a CPU check the official ASUS website here: https://www.asus.com/support/cpu_support. Note: not all CPUs are listed.

If you are running a Hex-Core CPU on any board version, please contact us.

Different Board configurations

There are 7 different configurations of this board: “standard”, 2S, iKVM, iKVM/IST, SAS, SAS/iKVM and SAS/iKVM/IST.

The 2S boards have two PCI-E slots with the numbers of lanes shared, making each slot have 8 lanes.

The iKVM boards are so called because they offer a remote real-time access to the machine through a removable PCI management card, their hardware is the same as the non-iKVM ones.

The SAS versions have a 4-port SAS controller and a four 7-pin SAS connectors instead of the PCI-E 8x slot which is present in all the other board configurations. Note: the SAS functionality is not supported by Canoeboot.

The IST versions with PCB revision 1.05G are the ones who are believed to support the six core Opteron Istanbul processors (2400 and 8400 series).

Issues/Untested

• There seems to be a 30 second bootblock delay (observed by tpearson); the system otherwise boots and works as expected. See text/kfsn4-dre/bootlog.txt - this uses the ‘simple’ bootblock, while tpearson uses the ‘normal’ bootblock, which tpearson suspects may be a possible cause. This person says that they will look into it. This config doesn’t have the issue.

• Text-mode is jittery and it may not be usable, so it’s recommended to flash the BIOS with the coreboot frame-buffer image (kfsn4-dre_corebootfb.rom). The jitter disappears if using KMS once the kernel starts, but it will remain, if booting the kernel in text-mode.

• Booting from USB mass storage devices is not possible; neither GRUB nor SeaBIOS detect USB drives when present. USB keyboards function under both GRUB and SeaBIOS, albeit slowly under GRUB (several seconds per character typed).

• To install an operating system you will need a hard disk with a pre-installed OS otherwise you have to plug in another hard disk or a CD/DVD reader in order to boot a copy of the installer of your OS, since the USB booting doesn’t work.

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