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LinuxBIOS README
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LinuxBIOS is a Free Software project aimed at replacing the proprietary
BIOS you can find in most of today's computers.

It performs just a little bit of hardware initialization and then executes
one of many possible payloads, e.g. a Linux kernel.


Payloads
--------

After the basic initialization of the hardware has been performed, any
desired "payload" can be started by LinuxBIOS. Examples include:

 * A Linux kernel
 * FILO (a simple bootloader with filesystem support)
 * GRUB2 (a free bootloader; support is in development)
 * OpenBIOS (a free IEEE1275-1994 Open Firmware implementation)
 * Open Firmware (a free IEEE1275-1994 Open Firmware implementation)
 * SmartFirmware (a free IEEE1275-1994 Open Firmware implementation)
 * GNUFI (a free, UEFI-compatible firmware)
 * Etherboot (for network booting and booting from raw IDE or FILO)
 * ADLO (for booting Windows 2000 or OpenBSD)
 * Plan 9 (a distributed operating system)
 * memtest86 (for testing your RAM)


Supported Hardware
------------------

LinuxBIOS supports a wide range of chipsets, devices, and mainboards.

For details please consult:

 * http://www.linuxbios.org/Supported_Motherboards
 * http://www.linuxbios.org/Supported_Chipsets_and_Devices


Building and Installing
-----------------------

Note: Currently only the x86 QEMU target is supported in LinuxBIOSv3.

1) Build a payload:

  For example: FILO.

2) Configure LinuxBIOS:

  $ make menuconfig

  Select at least the desired mainboard vendor, the mainboard device,
  the size of your ROM chip, and a payload.

3) Build the LinuxBIOS ROM image:

  $ make

  The generated ROM image is build/linuxbios.rom.

4) You can now test the LinuxBIOS image using:

  $ qemu -L build -hda /dev/zero -serial stdio

  If you have a full QEMU image with a Linux distribution installed,
  you can boot that Linux kernel by using a proper FILO payload and typing:

  $ qemu -L build -hda /tmp/qemu.img -serial stdio


Website and Mailing List
------------------------

Further details on the project, a FAQ, many HOWTOs, news, development
guidelines and more can be found on the LinuxBIOS website:

  http://www.linuxbios.org

You can contact us directly on the LinuxBIOS mailing list:

  http://www.linuxbios.org/Mailinglist


Copyright and License
---------------------

The copyright on LinuxBIOS is owned by quite a large number of individual
developers and companies. Please check the individual source files for details.

LinuxBIOS is licensed under the terms of the GNU General Public License (GPL).
Some files are licensed under the "GPL (version 2, or any later version)",
and some files (mostly those derived from the Linux kernel) are licensed under
the "GPL, version 2". For some parts, which were derived from other projects,
other (GPL-compatible) licenses may apply. Please check the individual
source files for details.

This makes the resulting LinuxBIOS images licensed under the GPL, version 2.