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Index > MenuetOS > UEFI support?

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sid123



Joined: 30 Jul 2013
Posts: 339
Location: Asia, Singapore
sid123 25 Mar 2014, 04:29
Hello,
I was wondering whether MenuetOS supports EFI, we are already losing legacy BIOS as UEFI is pushing, I know this may cause a problem for GUI as they rely on VBE.
Is UEFI support on the way?
-sid123

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Post 25 Mar 2014, 04:29
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Ville



Joined: 17 Jun 2003
Posts: 310
Ville 29 Mar 2014, 10:40
You can already write a hardware graphics driver, which sets graphics mode and returns frame buffer address, BPP, scanline, etc. Perhaps this structure can also hold an uefi graphics driver or interface.
Post 29 Mar 2014, 10:40
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sid123



Joined: 30 Jul 2013
Posts: 339
Location: Asia, Singapore
sid123 30 Mar 2014, 13:20
Hmm..
It seems that you can query UGA for the required information regarding a specific Video Mode and set it before calling UEFI ExitBootServices(). I think for UEFI we would need to have a separate loader which will gather all information from the firmware, and pass the information as a pointer to a table, or through the stack or store it at a memory location etc. and execute the MenuetOS Kernel, (UEFI Provides File Services Smile).
The other part I'm wondering is whether MenuetOS relies on SMM Code (PS/2, VGA etc.) which are likely not present under UEFI.
This seems to be an answer: http://wiki.osdev.org/Uefi.inc
Post 30 Mar 2014, 13:20
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Ville



Joined: 17 Jun 2003
Posts: 310
Ville 02 Apr 2014, 16:16
Menuet doesn't rely on SMM code. Once the kernel enters protected 64bit mode, all devices are controlled in kernel-code. In fact, if bios has the option to turn off legacy support for usb mouse and keyboard, then disabling is recommended. And thank you for the link for the uefi code, now all we need is a uefi -computer. Smile
Post 02 Apr 2014, 16:16
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MrFox



Joined: 17 Aug 2016
Posts: 52
Location: Russia
MrFox 21 Aug 2016, 09:35
Hi! I have a small EFI-32bit laptop with no legacy BIOS support, i.e. it doesn't have BIOS at all. The CPU is Intel Atom x86-64 but everything else is 32-bit (EFI and preinstalled Win10). Can I run Menuet on this machine? How do I do it?

I was going to try it myself but with little help from the OS's developers I guess I have more chances to succeed.


I suppose I can use GRUB, Syslinux or rEFIt/rEFInd loaders to get the OS's body into memory (via their 'chainload' capabilities or sth else) and pass control to the entry point. Will it work? I partitioned and configured a micro-SD card as an EFI bootable device, put the rEFInd loader to it, it boots okay and now ... I'm looking for a small OS to run.

I was goint to be using your OS as a small and fast IDE for EFI applications development in FASM and testing them on real hardware. Does it have an inbuilt fasm port?
Post 21 Aug 2016, 09:35
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Ville



Joined: 17 Jun 2003
Posts: 310
Ville 23 Aug 2016, 17:00
I havn't tested Menuet with UEFI bootloader, so using existing solutions, like the Linux route, would be a sensible choice. And yes, Menuet does have a FASM port. However, since Menuet applications run in fully protected ring-3 mode, applications doesn't have access to other environments (uefi) after booting.

Have you tested Menuet with VirtualBOX ? There you can test all the installed applications, including FASM.
Post 23 Aug 2016, 17:00
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MrFox



Joined: 17 Aug 2016
Posts: 52
Location: Russia
MrFox 24 Aug 2016, 20:23
Thanks Ville.
I tested the OS on my old BIOS-PC, it won't run on my real hardware so I gave up on this idea. The attempt on booting Menuet ended up looking at a black screen and reading a message "Load Kernel ?" or something like that. No keys would work (Esc, Space, Enter, Y/N, WTF...)...

As for VirtualBox... I don't need utterly any OS if I'm going to use VBox. What imma do then is just set up the virtual machine environment (with no OS present at all), 'check' the UEFI boot checkbox and have fun. It gets me to UEFI shell, which I can perfectly use to run my app.
But it's not real hardware... Sad
Sad but true.
I CAN test stuff on real hardware but yet I need something to write code. Something lightning-fast and ready to reboot in seconds, which I supposed, Menuet was.
Sorry Exclamation
-------
Added: Kolibri, the Russian fork of Menuet did boot on the BIOS-equipped-PC but it couldn't cope with USB mouse so I gave it up as well.
-------
No luck! Sad
Post 24 Aug 2016, 20:23
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Ville



Joined: 17 Jun 2003
Posts: 310
Ville 25 Aug 2016, 09:04
The "Load Kernel ?" message does not come from Menuet. Menuet bootsector does display a '?' if it cannot find kernel.mnt or config.mnt -files. So perhaps BIOS does not redirect the read-function to correct image/drive or there is something incorrect at bootup-setup.

Here is how to boot from CD:
http://www.menuetos.net/cdboot.htm

And if you try Menuet at VirtualBOX, you can get familiar with the boot-sequence as well. Just direct VB to boot from Menuet disk image.
Post 25 Aug 2016, 09:04
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