SchOS/boot/uefi
Repository files (latest commit first)
Filename Latest commit message Latest commit date
Nexoniarz 5ed8f1b0d5 kernel: load at 16 MB, clear of what firmware keeps low
From 1 MB the 34 MB kernel ran across 8 MB, where OVMF keeps ACPI NVS
memory that outlives the firmware -- so it was overwritten on every
boot, after ExitBootServices. Firmware leaves its leftovers low; above
16 MB is where a machine is most reliably empty.

KERNPHYS in memlayout.h, and kernel.ld agreeing with it. Nothing else
named the old address. Under OVMF the range is now only boot-services
memory: staged, copied home after the firmware exits, no warning. Boots
as a CD and as a USB disk, 1 and 4 CPUs.

The 15 MB below the kernel is not given to the page allocator yet.

Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5.5 <noreply@anthropic.com>
Claude-Session: https://claude.ai/code/session_01S1giNvrHTrPMPw7V6x1kQ4
2026-10-24 00:13:53 +02:00
..
efi.h display: a 64-bit framebuffer address, no mirroring onto itself 2026-10-23 15:46:42 +02:00
main.c kernel: load at 16 MB, clear of what firmware keeps low 2026-10-24 00:13:53 +02:00
README.md licence: SchOS is GPL-2.0-or-later, no longer Apache-2.0 2026-10-22 08:48:45 +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.