[SeaBIOS] Re: [EXTERNAL] Re: How to change Seabios configuration to disable Legacy Bios and enable UEFI bios

[Laszlo Ersek]

On 03/24/21 18:24, Fatemi (US), Afsheen K wrote:
> Thanks for your response, Keith.
>
> What do I need to do to switch to OVMF BIOS?

There is *zero support* for the below, first because the RH-provided
"ovmf" SRPM in RHEL7 is Tech Preview in all minor releases of RHEL7 [1],
second because in base RHEL7 (in the qemu-kvm package) there is no QEMU
binary that's capable of executing the OVMF binary mentioned previously
[2]. For that, you either need the qemu-kvm-rhev package from the RHV or
RHOSP layered products (not base RHEL7), or the qemu-kvm-ev package from
CentOS 7.

[1] https://access.redhat.com/discussions/2958371#comment-1155681
[2] https://access.redhat.com/solutions/3364131

So the minimal, strictly technical-sense answer to your question, in an
environment that's "as much RHEL7 as possible", is:

- upgrade the host to the latest RHEL7 minor release (for sake of having
the latest RHEL7 KVM bits in the kernel)

- install qemu-kvm-ev from CentOS 7

- install the latest "OVMF" package (built from the "ovmf" SRPM),
currently "OVMF-20180508-6.gitee3198e672e2.el7.noarch.rpm". Available in
the RHEL7 Server product only.

- In virt-manager, define a new domain, and select "customize before
install", as one of the last steps. Then go to Overview, and select Q35
as chipset, and UEFI as firmware.

If you search the web for some of the above terms (ovmf centos
qemu-kvm-ev), you'll find some more info. My memories are a bit rusty
because I've done this a very long time ago on RHEL7.

Anyway, you'd be much-much better off using a more recent distribution
(for example, RHEL-8).

If you'd like to continue this discussion, please let's not generate
more noise about OVMF on the SeaBIOS development list. I recommend this
list instead:

[e-mail]
  https://edk2.groups.io/g/discuss/

Thanks,
Laszlo
> Afsheen
>
> From: Keith Hui [mailto:[e-mail]]
> Sent: Wednesday, March 24, 2021 10:08 AM
> To: Fatemi (US), Afsheen K 
> Cc: [e-mail]
> Subject: [EXTERNAL] Re: [SeaBIOS] How to change Seabios configuration to disable Legacy Bios and enable UEFI bios
>
> EXT email: be mindful of links/attachments.
>
> Hi Afsheen,
>
> SeaBIOS IS legacy BIOS. Although Windows 10 should still work with it, if you want UEFI only, you need to look at a different solution such as OVMF.
>
> Regards
> Keith
>
> On Wed., Mar. 24, 2021, 11:01 Fatemi (US), Afsheen K, <[e-mail]> wrote:
> Dear SeaBios Support,
>
> I’m using KVM on a Redhat 7.3. I’m having difficulty creating a Windows 10 VM as it complains in the beginning of the installation that the BIOS is set to Legacy which should be disabled and set to UEFI. The BIOS of the physical host is indeed set to UEFI but the BIOS of the virtual box that KVM is using(Seabios version 1.9.1-5.el7) appears to be set to Legacy. I don’t know how to reconfigure Seabios to change it to UEFI. The VM boot menu doesn’t have any options to go to its bios. Apparently there should be some “kemu” or similar command with correct parameters which might do the trick. Any help would be appreciated very much.
>
> Regards,
>
> Afsheen
>
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