[coreboot] User interface on coreboot

[Alex G.]

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On 08/10/2012 03:09 AM, Lap Ngo Doan wrote:
> Hi all, As you may know, when we enter to BIOS, we can use the 
> keyboard to change some settings such as : enable/disable 
> something, change boot devices priority ....It is kind of user 
> interface on BIOS. In the coreboot website, they said "*coreboot* 
> is a Free Software project aimed at *replacing the 
> proprietary**BIOS*
This statement is unfortunately misleading. It's not our fault really.
It comes from the tendency to name the firmware "BIOS", which is in
fact hardware initialization, then the actual BIOS.
Coreboot is the hardware initialization part.

> If we want to add some interactions with hardware like BIOS 
> firmware provided us (use keyboard to enable/disable some 
> options....),  how could we do it with coreboot?

Keep those settings in NVRAM, and write a payload to read and modify
NVRAM. libpayload is there for the taking; the biggest hurdle may be
figuring out how to parse NVRAM (different hardware stores different
settings in different places). You might also need to modify parts of
coreboot to make it use NVRAM for settings.
Some to most boards have a cmos.layout file. You can find a way to
make that available to your payload. You have a bunch of options to
play with.

Then SeaBIOS can boot from CBFS, and you'd just have to use its boot
menu to load your payload. For all others, there's debit bayou.

This sounds like a cool project, and a nice way to get your hands
dirty with coreboot, learn your way around.

Alex
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