|
SeaBIOS
SeaBIOS is an open-source implementation of an x86 BIOS, serving as a freely available firmware for x86 systems. Aiming for compatibility, it supports standard BIOS features and calling interfaces that are implemented by a typical proprietary x86 BIOS. SeaBIOS can either run on bare hardware as a coreboot payload, or can be used directly in emulators such as QEMU and Bochs. Initially, SeaBIOS was based on the open-source BIOS implementation included with the Bochs emulator. The project was created with intentions to allow native usage on x86 hardware, and to be based on an improved and more easily extendable internal source code implementation. Features Features supported by SeaBIOS include the following: * Graphical bootsplash screen (JPEG and BMP) * USB keyboard and mouse support * USB Mass Storage boot support * USB Attached SCSI boot support * ATA support * AHCI support * NVMe support * El Torito optical disc drive boot support * BIOS Boot Specification (BBS) * Rebooting ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] [Amazon] |
Coreboot
coreboot, formerly known as LinuxBIOS, is a software project aimed at replacing proprietary firmware (BIOS or UEFI) found in most computers with a lightweight firmware designed to perform only the minimum number of tasks necessary to load and run a modern 32-bit or 64-bit operating system. Since coreboot initializes the bare hardware, it must be ported to every chipset and motherboard that it supports. As a result, coreboot is available only for a limited number of hardware platforms and motherboard models. One of the coreboot variants is Libreboot, a software distribution partly free of proprietary blobs, aimed at end users. History The coreboot project began with the goal of creating a BIOS that would start fast and handle errors intelligently. It is licensed under the terms of the GNU General Public License version 2 (GPLv2). Main contributors include LANL, SiS, AMD, Coresystems and Linux Networx, Inc, as well as motherboard vendors MSI, Gigabyte and Tyan, which of ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] [Amazon] |
Kernel-based Virtual Machine
Kernel-based Virtual Machine (KVM) is a free and open-source virtualization module in the Linux kernel that allows the Kernel (operating system), kernel to function as a hypervisor. It was merged into the Mainline Linux, mainline Linux kernel in version 2.6.20, which was released on February 5, 2007. KVM requires a processor with hardware virtualization extensions, such as Intel VT or AMD-V. KVM has also been ported to other operating systems such as FreeBSD and illumos in the form of loadable kernel modules. KVM was originally designed for x86 processors but has since been porting, ported to IBM ESA/390, ESA/390, PowerPC, IA-64, and ARM architecture, ARM. The IA-64 port was removed in 2014. KVM supports hardware-assisted virtualization for a wide variety of guest operating systems including BSD, Solaris (operating system), Solaris, Microsoft Windows, Windows, Haiku (operating system), Haiku, ReactOS, Plan 9 from Bell Labs, Plan 9, AROS Research Operating System, AROS, macOS, ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] [Amazon] |
QEMU
The Quick Emulator (QEMU) is a free and open-source emulator that uses dynamic binary translation to emulate a computer's processor; that is, it translates the emulated binary codes to an equivalent binary format which is executed by the machine. It provides a variety of hardware and device models for the virtual machine, enabling it to run different guest operating systems. QEMU can be used with a Kernel-based Virtual Machine (KVM) to emulate hardware at near-native speeds. Additionally, it supports user-level processes, allowing applications compiled for one processor architecture to run on another. QEMU supports the emulation of x86, ARM, PowerPC, RISC-V, and other architectures. Licensing QEMU is free software developed by Fabrice Bellard. Different components of QEMU are licensed under the GNU General Public License (GPL), BSD license, GNU Lesser General Public License (LGPL), or other GPL-compatible licenses. Operating modes QEMU has multiple operating modes: ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] [Amazon] |
BIOS Boot Specification
An option ROM for the PC platform (i.e. the IBM PC and derived successor computer systems) is a piece of firmware that resides in ROM on an expansion card (or stored along with the main system BIOS), which gets executed to initialize the device and (optionally) add support for the device to the BIOS. In its usual use, it is essentially a driver that interfaces between the BIOS API and hardware. Technically, an option ROM is firmware that is executed by the BIOS after POST (the testing and initialization of basic system hardware) and before the BIOS boot process, gaining complete control of the system and being generally unrestricted in what it can do. The BIOS relies on each option ROM to return control to the BIOS so that it can either call the next option ROM or commence the boot process. For this reason, it is possible (but not usual) for an option ROM to keep control and preempt the BIOS boot process. The BIOS (at least as originally designed by IBM) generally scans for and ini ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] [Amazon] |
