How to boot MS Windows via coreboot? ADLO/Bochs or LegacyBIOS/SeaBIOS?

Since about 2002-2003 this has always been ADLO with Bochs BIOS,
but now there seems to be more development activity on
LegacyBIOS/SeaBIOS.

Warning: This repeats some verbiage from a post dated 2008/07/07
concerning MS Windows XP Embedded booted via coreboot.

The ADLO web page:

http://www.coreboot.org/ADLO

This page doesn't seem to have been updated in years.  I recall
seeing messages on the list saying that people have been able
to boot both MS Windows XP and MS Windows Vista in addition to
the originally supported MS Windows 2000, OpenBSD and Grub/Lilo.

Booting Windows using coreboot:

http://www.coreboot.org/Booting_Windows_using_coreboot

This page is obviously more up to date and even links to the
ADLO page.

SeaBIOS:

http://www.coreboot.org/SeaBIOS

This page seems to suggest that SeaBIOS only works under qemu,
but I think it should work on any coreboot supported board to
the extant that VGABIOS supports the video controller or a
commercial VGA BIOS is used with coreboot.

Can someone please clarify the recommended procedure for
booting MS Windows via coreboot?

-- XP Embedded related question --

In the above referenced post, I asked the same question,
except specifically relating to booting "MS Windows
XP Embedded" via coreboot.  Has anyone done this yet?
I'm referring to the componentized version of XP Embedded,
usually referred to as "XPe":

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windows_XP_editions#Windows_XP_Embedded

It seems that booting XP Embedded should be no different
from booting regular XP as long as all modules required
for booting are selected.  So booting XP Embedded via
coreboot should work fine, depending on the payloads used.

Sincerely,

Ken Fuchs

How to boot MS Windows via coreboot? ADLO/Bochs or LegacyBIOS/SeaBIOS?

[Carl-Daniel Hailfinger]

On 11.07.2008 23:52, [e-mail] wrote:
> Since about 2002-2003 this has always been ADLO with Bochs BIOS,
> but now there seems to be more development activity on
> LegacyBIOS/SeaBIOS.

ADLO hasn't seen any development activity since 2004 except for a short
period in 2007 during Google Summer of Code.
SeaBIOS is developed actively, but it's fairly new.

ADLO only worked on exactly one real mainboard with a SiS630 chipset,
but it works nicely in Qemu.
SeaBIOS attempts to work on all hardware (at least that's the perceived
goal), but it also had Qemu as main testing platform.

ADLO is working in conjunction with the old BOCHS BIOS in assembler.
SeaBIOS is written in C.

I'd say that you want to try SeaBIOS and test it. Then report
success/failure to this list.

About Windows XP Embedded: I believe booting that XP variant may even be
easier if you have the chance to mix-and-match the modules you want.

Regards,
Carl-Daniel

[Peter Stuge]

On Fri, Jul 11, 2008 at 04:52:49PM -0500, [e-mail] wrote:
> Can someone please clarify the recommended procedure for
> booting MS Windows via coreboot?

This is still not a completely solved problem.

AFAIK the single way this has ever worked is using ADLO in qemu.

//Peter