LinuxBoot
{{Short description|Free software firmware project}}
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LinuxBoot is a free software project aimed at replacing most of the Driver Execution Environment (DXE) modules in Unified Extensible Firmware Interface (UEFI) firmware with the Linux kernel. LinuxBoot must run on top of hardware initialisation software in order to start. This can be the Pre-EFI Initialization (PEI) part of UEFI, coreboot, or U-Boot.{{cite web |title=Bringing Linux back to server boot ROMs with NERF and Heads |url=https://media.ccc.de/v/34c3-9056-bringing_linux_back_to_server_boot_roms_with_nerf_and_heads |website=media.ccc.de|date=29 December 2017 }} It can boot Linux through the kexec syscall, but is also able to boot Windows with a different method.{{Cite web|url=https://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=LinuxBoot-Can-Boot-Windows|title=LinuxBoot Continues Maturing - Now Able To Boot Windows - Phoronix|website=www.phoronix.com|access-date=2019-11-13}}
History
Originally, the project was started as NERF by Google.{{cite web |title=LinuxBoot: Linux as firmware |url=https://lwn.net/Articles/748586/ |website=LWN.net}} NERF was a stripped-down version of EFI which contains a Linux kernel and userland applications. This project has been split up into LinuxBoot (which contains the bootblock and kernel) and u-root, which contains the userland application.
LinuxBoot became an official Linux Foundation project in 2018.{{cite web |title=System Startup Gets a Boost with New LinuxBoot Project |url=https://www.linuxfoundation.org/blog/blog/system-startup-gets-a-boost-with-new-linuxboot-project/ |accessdate=5 May 2025}}
Hardware support
Currently, the EFI support of LinuxBoot is limited to a few servers:{{cite web |title=LinuxBoot GitHub |url=https://github.com/linuxboot/linuxboot |website=GitHub |accessdate=3 February 2019}}
- Dell R630
- Open Compute Project Winterfell, Leopard, Monolake and Tioga Pass
- Intel S2600WF
LinuxBoot is in theory also supported on all the mainboards that are supported by the coreboot project, which does include the OCP Monolake.{{cite web |title=Mainboards supported by coreboot |url=https://www.coreboot.org/status/board-status.html}} In practice, the support is limited due to flash size constraints.
References
{{Reflist}}
External links
- [https://www.linuxjournal.com/content/foss-project-spotlight-linuxboot FOSS Project Spotlight: LinuxBoot]
{{Firmware and booting}}
Category:Free BIOS implementations
Category:Software related to embedded Linux
Category:Software using the GNU General Public License
{{Linux-stub}}