Open Firmware

Introduction

In 2006 the company of Open Firmware inventor Mitch Bradley, Firmworks, Inc, released their Open Firmware implementation under a BSD license. This code shares some code with SUN's OpenBOOT implementation. It supports the x86 architecture and runs, amongst others, as a LinuxBIOS payload. It is the firmware implementation on the OLPC.

Download

The code can be browsed online with the ViewVC facility.

The repository is available through Subversion:

You can check it out as follows:

 $ svn co svn://openbios.org/openfirmware/

if you want a specific revision:

 $ svn co svn://openbios.org/openfirmware -r 35

If your company installed a firewall that blocks the svn port (3690) you can also check out using the webdav frontend:

$ svn co https://www.openbios.org/openfirmware-svn/ openfirmware

LinuxBIOS

You should change openfirmware/cpu/x86/pc/biosload/config.fth:

Index: config.fth
===================================================================
--- config.fth  (revision 533)
+++ config.fth  (working copy)
@@ -9,7 +9,7 @@
 \ - Image Format - Example Media - previous stage bootloader
 
 \ - (Syslinux) COM32 format - USB Key w/ FAT FS - Syslinux
-create syslinux-loaded
+\ create syslinux-loaded
 
 \ - Linux kernel format - USB Key w/ FAT FS - LinuxBIOS w/ stripped Linux  payload 
 \ create bzimage-loaded
@@ -19,7 +19,7 @@
 \ create etherboot-variant  \ Enable additional tweaks for Etherboot
 
 \ - ELF format (no pheader) - ROM - LinuxBIOS direct
-\ create linuxbios-loaded
+create linuxbios-loaded
 
 \ Load and run in qemu
 \ create qemu-loaded 

Building

$ cd openfirmware/cpu/x86/pc/biosload/build
$ make

This will result in an ELF payload oflb.elf in the current directory.