SchOS/boot/uefi
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Nexoniarz 56139bd0e6 boot/uefi: a working UEFI loader, with one known limitation
Loads the kernel from the ESP, places its ELF segments, records the
framebuffer, translates the UEFI memory map into E820 entries, exits boot
services, builds the page tables the kernel expects and jumps. Verified
under OVMF: the kernel starts, brings up PCI, VGA, e1000 and the RTC, and
reaches "cpu0: starting".

UEFI structures are written from the specification rather than importing
gnu-efi or EDK II -- a large dependency for two hundred lines of use, and
a licensing question the project does not need to answer. clang emits
PE/COFF directly, so this needs no new toolchain.

The kernel gained a second entry point. The multiboot entry is 32-bit
code that climbs into long mode itself, and firmware that already put us
there would have to drop back down only to climb out again -- a mode
switch whose failure mode is a triple fault with no console. So entry.S
publishes its 64-bit entry the same way it publishes the multiboot
header: a magic to scan for, SCH64BOO, with include/schboot.h owning the
constants so the two cannot disagree. That header goes *after* the
multiboot header, never before: header_addr says the multiboot header
lives at mboot_load_addr, and the BIOS loader computes the kernel's file
offset from it.

The kernel loads its own GDT at that entry rather than the loader doing
it. Arriving in long mode means arriving on the firmware's descriptors,
and the first thing depending on the kernel's own selectors faulted --
"unexpected trap 13 ... cs=38", a long way from the cause.

KNOWN LIMITATION, diagnosed and not yet fixed: e820_init takes the usable
run *containing the kernel*, which under OVMF ends at 8 MB -- the
firmware places an ACPI NVS region at 0x800000, so the run is genuinely
fragmented. The map is truthful and untruncated (21 entries); the
assumption of one contiguous run is BIOS-shaped. The fix is for the
kernel to free each usable region rather than one range, which touches
kalloc and deserves its own change rather than the tail of this one.

BIOS boot is unaffected: 27 checks, no failures.
2026-08-09 17:13:09 +02:00
..
efi.h boot/uefi: a working UEFI loader, with one known limitation 2026-08-09 17:13:09 +02:00
main.c boot/uefi: a working UEFI loader, with one known limitation 2026-08-09 17:13:09 +02:00
README.md boot: separate BIOS from UEFI 2026-08-09 16:00:03 +02:00
startup.nsh boot/uefi: a working UEFI loader, with one known limitation 2026-08-09 17:13:09 +02:00

UEFI loader

Not written yet. This directory exists so the BIOS path could be moved into boot/bios/ without pretending the split was hypothetical.

See ../README.md for the hand-off contract a loader has to satisfy. The short version: the kernel wants long mode with paging on, its ELF segments placed, a 24-byte-entry E820-shaped memory map, and framebuffer geometry — and it does not care which firmware produced them.

What this will need, in rough order:

  1. A PE/COFF target. clang can emit one directly (--target=x86_64-unknown-windows -fuse-ld=lld-link), so no new toolchain: the same LLVM install already builds every other target here.
  2. The handful of UEFI structures actually used — the system table, boot services, LOADED_IMAGE, SIMPLE_FILE_SYSTEM, GRAPHICS_OUTPUT. Written from the specification rather than by importing gnu-efi or EDK II, which is both a licence question and a large dependency for something this small.
  3. GetMemoryMap translated into the same 24-byte entries e820.c already parses. Not a second format for the kernel to learn.
  4. ExitBootServices before touching the memory it described.
  5. Graphics Output Protocol for the framebuffer, filling the same VBE_INFO_ADDR structure the BIOS path fills.

The image goes at EFI/BOOT/BOOTX64.EFI on a FAT ESP, which also means the ISO gains an El Torito EFI entry alongside the BIOS one it already has.