[vbox-dev] What prevents from using a different BIOS ?

[Huihong Luo]

thanks for the pointer.
 
We also have some usb code from our boot loader can be used.
 
The problem with current vbox bios code, all code is in the single huge file (rombios.c). In order to support usb, we need some modulized clock and pci code. Clock timers are needed for scheduling usb frames.

--- On Tue, 6/22/10, Alexey Eremenko <al4321 at gmail.com> wrote:


From: Alexey Eremenko <al4321 at gmail.com>
Subject: Re: [vbox-dev] What prevents from using a different BIOS ?
To: vbox-dev at virtualbox.org
Date: Tuesday, June 22, 2010, 3:30 PM


On Wed, Jun 23, 2010 at 12:17 AM, Huihong Luo <huisinro at yahoo.com> wrote:
>
> I am trying to extend the vbox BIOS module to support USB devices, and flash drive boot.
>
> The current BIOS is 64k in size, what is the consequency if we increase the size to 128K? the usb code is rather large, 64k won't hold it.
>
> Or, perhaps a better way, is to replace the whole bios code. Is there anything specific to vbox that makes this not to work? if not, is it going to be really difficult to port another BIOS to use with vbox?
>
> The current bios code is monolithic, not easy to extend.
>

Before you write any such thing, please take a look at SeaBIOS here:
http://www.coreboot.org/SeaBIOS

It seems this BIOS supports USB disk boot, and it was ported to run on Qemu.
NOTE: I have not tried it, so I don't know about any potential problems.

The big problem of changing BIOS, is that we must ensure *everything*
works with all guest OSes, which is not easy.

--
-Alexey Eromenko "Technologov"

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