SchOS/boot/uefi
Repository files (latest commit first)
Filename Latest commit message Latest commit date
Nexoniarz 30a0d0fbed dbg: the boot menu can turn on remote debugging, in a debug build
schdbgd ships Disabled, and its manifest explains why: a debugger that can read
the process table should not run on a machine whose owner never asked for one.
That default is right and has one bad consequence -- **the machines that most
need debugging are the ones you cannot get a shell on to enable it.** A laptop
with no serial port that stops before it can draw has nowhere to say why, and
`schinitd enable` needs a prompt that does not exist.

So `make DEBUG=1` adds a sixth entry to the F8 menu. Picking it toggles;
booting carries the choice through SCHBOOT_DEBUG_FLAG; the kernel publishes
/proc/bootdebug; schinitd starts the one job that flag may un-disable, with
the manifest's Args now naming 0.0.0.0 -- a debugger reachable only from the
machine being debugged is no use when that machine is the one that will not
talk to you.

Four decisions, since this is a network-reachable debugger:

  compiled out, not hidden   A release build cannot set the flag because the
                             code that would set it is not in the binary. A
                             menu item that is present and refuses is an
                             invitation to make it not refuse.
  consent at the machine     Somebody standing at the keyboard during boot is
                             the strongest consent this system can ask for and
                             the weakest one that is any use on hardware that
                             will not boot.
  one job, named in schinitd Not a manifest key like EnableIfDebug: the general
                             version of "the boot menu starts things that ship
                             off" is worse than the specific one, and this way
                             what the flag can start is one readable line.
  the kernel only publishes  Nothing in the kernel behaves differently, so a
                             debug kernel and a release kernel are the same
                             kernel and a bug cannot be the flag's fault.

/proc/bootdebug is its own file rather than a second line in /proc/bootmode,
because bootmode's whole promise is that reading it is a string compare and
not a parser.

**Also: `tone` stopped lying.** On a machine with no sound card it reported
"the device will not take 16-bit samples", which sends you looking at the
format code instead of at the empty PCI slot -- /dev/dsp exists whether or not
hardware is behind it, and the ioctl is where the absence shows up. ENODEV is
now told apart from a format refusal.

Verified end to end: F8 -> item 6 -> boot -> schinitd says it is starting
schdbgd -> a client outside the VM connected to the forwarded port and ran
`dma`, getting the real arena dump back. The release build has no such entry
in the binary at all, and boots clean.

Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5 <noreply@anthropic.com>
2026-09-24 15:05:23 +02:00
..
efi.h gfx: the second head shows the boot, not just what comes after it 2026-09-22 21:47:35 +02:00
main.c dbg: the boot menu can turn on remote debugging, in a debug build 2026-09-24 15:05:23 +02:00
README.md boot: the BIOS loader is gone 2026-08-11 10:20:28 +02:00
startup.nsh boot/uefi: a working UEFI loader, with one known limitation 2026-08-09 17:13:09 +02:00

UEFI loader

The loader. This directory once existed only so the BIOS path could be moved into boot/bios/ without pretending the split was hypothetical; it is now the only path there is.

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 kernel reads.

The image goes at EFI/BOOT/BOOTX64.EFI on a FAT ESP, which also means the ISO carries a single El Torito EFI entry.