ALIX.3D3 booting

In contrary to most ALIX devices, the ALIX.3D3 has an integrated VGA controller and an Award BIOS (tinyBIOS doesn't support VGA), so why not attach a monitor.

Standard text mode is supported by default (and faster than graphical mode), but if you wish to change resolution, add a boot logo or even want to use a graphical boot screen like splashutils a framebuffer device is needed.

lspci lists the integrated VGA controller of the AMD Geode LX800 CPU as the video device:

00:01.1 VGA compatible controller: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD] Geode LX Video

Luckily the linux kernel supports this device directly and so no VESA framebuffer is needed. Continue reading →