Coreboot: x86 system boot and initialization

By Rudolf Marek

We would like to present a talk aimed to various stages of x86 hardware initialization. We start with hardware description of typical x86 system including flash storage. We switch to the software part, defining the CPU state while it fetches first instruction. We present a step by step procedure with a descriptions of various steps (DRAM initialization, Northbridge/Southbridge initialization) necessary to bring the system to point where it can boot OS. Luckily there are Free software projects working close together - Coreboot, SeaBIOS, which we would like to introduce during the talk. Depending our slots in devroom we would either stress the first part or on contrary the second part (introduction of Coreboot SeaBIOS).

coreboot (formerly known as LinuxBIOS) is a Free Software project aimed at replacing the proprietary BIOS (firmware) you can find in most of today's computers. It performs just a little bit of hardware initialization and then executes a so-called payload.


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