[coreboot] using SeaBios on EFI platforms

Scott D. Davilla davilla at 4pi.com
Fri Feb 13 20:25:08 CET 2009


SeaBios seems to have matured nicely and I figure it's about time to 
try again my attempts at resolving boot restrictions on the AppleTV.

For review, I'm the atv-bootloader author which is used for booting 
Linux under the AppleTV. This is a second stage bootloader which 
poses as a mach_kernel which was loaded by EFI firmware.

Currently, to enable loading a generic Linux kernel I'm already 
moving RSDP and SMBIOS table to where Linux can find them as well as 
converting the EFI memory map to an e820 memory map. This works very 
well and the next step is to get VBIOS POST'ed and working. With 
VBIOS working, this removes the last problem area that being able to 
use generic video console drivers. Once this is done, then the Linux 
kernels booted can be truly generic and also adds the possibility of 
booting Windows.

 From what I can gleam from the code, it seems that I should be able 
to load up SeaBios, setup the proper structures that it expects and 
go. Then bang, instant bios which will not only handle vbios but also 
a real bios.

Any comments or pointers to things to watch out for would be appreciated.

Thanks
Scott




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