| Welcome to OpenBIOS | |
| ------------------- | |
| OpenBIOS is a free, portable implementation of IEEE 1275-1994 | |
| (Open Firmware). Find detailed information about OpenBIOS at | |
| http://www.openbios.org/ | |
| What is OpenBIOS? | |
| ----------------- | |
| OpenBIOS can replace your system firmware (BIOS) partly or completely. It | |
| can also be used as a bootloader to create an Open Firmware compatible | |
| interface between legacy firmware and an operating system. | |
| This is achieved by a modular concept that consists of a portable Forth | |
| kernel and three interfaces for user interaction, device initialization | |
| and client (operating system) control. | |
| While far not all possible applications of OpenBIOS are implemented yet, | |
| a lot of functionality is already there. OpenBIOS can be used to enhance | |
| LinuxBIOS (http://www.linuxbios.org), or be booted from any multiboot | |
| capable bootloader to bring Open Firmware to your machine. OpenBIOS can | |
| also be used when an operating system is already running. It provides | |
| the needed OpenFirmware functionality to MOL (MacOnLinux) to boot MacOS | |
| 9 and X on PPC machines, as well as Linux (all supported platforms) | |
| OpenBIOS build options | |
| --------------------- | |
| config/scripts/switch-arch <platform> - build for specified platform | |
| Look in config/example for | |
| platforms. | |
| make - build all configured binaries | |
| make run - run unix example. | |
| How OpenBIOS works | |
| ------------------ | |
| The OpenBIOS forth core is split into a forth kernel written in portable | |
| C and a forth dictionary which operated on by the kernel. | |
| When building the forth core, you get different versions of | |
| the forth kernel: | |
| * a unix executable program | |
| - to execute a forth dictionary from a file. This can be used for | |
| easily testing and developing OpenBIOS on a unix host. | |
| - to create a dictionary file. Such a dictionary file sets up | |
| all of the forth language. Primitives are indexed to save relocations. | |
| The default is to create a forth dictionary forth.dict from | |
| forth/start.fs. This file includes all of the basic forth language | |
| constructs from forth/bootstrap.fs and starts the interpreter. | |
| To achieve this, the hosted unix version contains a basic set of | |
| forth words coded in C that allow creating a full dictionary. | |
| * a varying number of target specific binaries. On x86 you can start | |
| openbios for example from GRUB or LinuxBIOS. They are all based on | |
| the same forth engine consisting of a dictionary scheduler, primitive | |
| words needed to build the forth environment, 2 stacks and a simple | |
| set of console functions. These binaries can not be started directly | |
| in the unix host environment. | |
| Requirements | |
| ------------ | |
| * gcc | |
| * gnu make | |
| * OpenBIOS FCode Utils | |
| Download with svn co svn://openbios.org/openbios/fcode-utils | |
| * grub or any other multiboot loader to run the multiboot | |
| binary "openbios.multiboot" with it's module "openbios-<platform>.dict" | |
| * xsltproc | |
| Building & Usage | |
| ---------------- | |
| * make | |
| this builds "openbios.multiboot", the standalone image and "openbios-unix", | |
| the hosted image. Additionally it creates a forth dictionary | |
| file from forth/start.fs. All generated files are written to | |
| the absolute directory held by the variable BUILDDIR, which defaults | |
| to obj-[platform]. Some compile time parameters can be tweaked in | |
| include/config.h | |
| * use "openbios-unix" to create a forth dictionary on your own: | |
| $ obj-x86/openbios-unix -Iforth start.fs | |
| creates the file forth.dict from forth source forth/start.fs. | |
| * use "openbios-unix" to run a created dictionary: | |
| $ obj-x86/openbios-unix obj-x86/openbios-unix.dict | |
| This is useful for testing | |
| * booting openbios | |
| You can boot openbios i.e. in grub. Add the following lines to | |
| your menu.lst: | |
| title openbios | |
| kernel (hd0,2)/boot/openbios.multiboot | |
| module (hd0,2)/boot/openbios-x86.dict | |
| Note: change (hd0,2) to the partition you copied the openbios image and | |
| openbios-x86.dict to. | |
| To boot OpenBIOS from LinuxBIOS/etherboot, you can either use | |
| "openbios-plain.elf" or "openbios-builtin.elf": | |
| - openbios-plain.elf is the pure kernel that loads the dictionary from a | |
| hardcoded address in flash memory (0xfffe0000) | |
| - openbios-builtin.elf also includes the dictionary directly so that it | |
| can be easily used from etherboot or the LinuxBIOS builtin ELF | |
| loader without taking care of the dictionary | |
| CREDITS | |
| ------- | |
| OpenBIOS was developed by Stefan Reinauer, Samuel Rydh and Patrick Mauritz. | |
| The OpenBIOS IDE driver was written by Jens Axboe. | |
| For license details on this piece of software, see the file COPYING. | |
| If you have patches, questions, comments, feel free to contact the OpenBIOS | |
| mailinglist. | |
| Regards, | |
| the OpenBIOS team |