2 # Copyright (C) 2014, Simon Glass <sjg@chromium.org>
3 # Copyright (C) 2014, Bin Meng <bmeng.cn@gmail.com>
5 # SPDX-License-Identifier: GPL-2.0+
11 This document describes the information about U-Boot running on x86 targets,
12 including supported boards, build instructions, todo list, etc.
16 U-Boot supports running as a coreboot [1] payload on x86. So far only Link
17 (Chromebook Pixel) and QEMU [2] x86 targets have been tested, but it should
18 work with minimal adjustments on other x86 boards since coreboot deals with
19 most of the low-level details.
21 U-Boot also supports booting directly from x86 reset vector, without coreboot.
22 In this case, known as bare mode, from the fact that it runs on the
23 'bare metal', U-Boot acts like a BIOS replacement. The following platforms
27 - Congatec QEVAL 2.0 & conga-QA3/E3845
31 - Link (Chromebook Pixel)
33 - Samus (Chromebook Pixel 2015)
36 As for loading an OS, U-Boot supports directly booting a 32-bit or 64-bit
37 Linux kernel as part of a FIT image. It also supports a compressed zImage.
38 U-Boot supports loading an x86 VxWorks kernel. Please check README.vxworks
41 Build Instructions for U-Boot as coreboot payload
42 -------------------------------------------------
43 Building U-Boot as a coreboot payload is just like building U-Boot for targets
44 on other architectures, like below:
46 $ make coreboot-x86_defconfig
49 Note this default configuration will build a U-Boot payload for the QEMU board.
50 To build a coreboot payload against another board, you can change the build
51 configuration during the 'make menuconfig' process.
55 (qemu-x86) Board configuration file
56 (qemu-x86_i440fx) Board Device Tree Source (dts) file
57 (0x01920000) Board specific Cache-As-RAM (CAR) address
58 (0x4000) Board specific Cache-As-RAM (CAR) size
60 Change the 'Board configuration file' and 'Board Device Tree Source (dts) file'
61 to point to a new board. You can also change the Cache-As-RAM (CAR) related
62 settings here if the default values do not fit your new board.
64 Build Instructions for U-Boot as BIOS replacement (bare mode)
65 -------------------------------------------------------------
66 Building a ROM version of U-Boot (hereafter referred to as u-boot.rom) is a
67 little bit tricky, as generally it requires several binary blobs which are not
68 shipped in the U-Boot source tree. Due to this reason, the u-boot.rom build is
69 not turned on by default in the U-Boot source tree. Firstly, you need turn it
70 on by enabling the ROM build:
74 This tells the Makefile to build u-boot.rom as a target.
78 Chromebook Link specific instructions for bare mode:
80 First, you need the following binary blobs:
82 * descriptor.bin - Intel flash descriptor
83 * me.bin - Intel Management Engine
84 * mrc.bin - Memory Reference Code, which sets up SDRAM
85 * video ROM - sets up the display
87 You can get these binary blobs by:
89 $ git clone http://review.coreboot.org/p/blobs.git
92 Find the following files:
94 * ./mainboard/google/link/descriptor.bin
95 * ./mainboard/google/link/me.bin
96 * ./northbridge/intel/sandybridge/systemagent-r6.bin
98 The 3rd one should be renamed to mrc.bin.
99 As for the video ROM, you can get it here [3] and rename it to vga.bin.
100 Make sure all these binary blobs are put in the board directory.
102 Now you can build U-Boot and obtain u-boot.rom:
104 $ make chromebook_link_defconfig
109 Chromebook Samus (2015 Pixel) instructions for bare mode:
111 First, you need the following binary blobs:
113 * descriptor.bin - Intel flash descriptor
114 * me.bin - Intel Management Engine
115 * mrc.bin - Memory Reference Code, which sets up SDRAM
116 * refcode.elf - Additional Reference code
117 * vga.bin - video ROM, which sets up the display
119 If you have a samus you can obtain them from your flash, for example, in
120 developer mode on the Chromebook (use Ctrl-Alt-F2 to obtain a terminal and
124 flashrom -w samus.bin
125 scp samus.bin username@ip_address:/path/to/somewhere
127 If not see the coreboot tree [4] where you can use:
129 bash crosfirmware.sh samus
131 to get the image. There is also an 'extract_blobs.sh' scripts that you can use
132 on the 'coreboot-Google_Samus.*' file to short-circuit some of the below.
134 Then 'ifdtool -x samus.bin' on your development machine will produce:
136 flashregion_0_flashdescriptor.bin
137 flashregion_1_bios.bin
138 flashregion_2_intel_me.bin
140 Rename flashregion_0_flashdescriptor.bin to descriptor.bin
141 Rename flashregion_2_intel_me.bin to me.bin
142 You can ignore flashregion_1_bios.bin - it is not used.
144 To get the rest, use 'cbfstool samus.bin print':
146 samus.bin: 8192 kB, bootblocksize 2864, romsize 8388608, offset 0x700000
147 alignment: 64 bytes, architecture: x86
149 Name Offset Type Size
150 cmos_layout.bin 0x700000 cmos_layout 1164
151 pci8086,0406.rom 0x7004c0 optionrom 65536
152 spd.bin 0x710500 (unknown) 4096
153 cpu_microcode_blob.bin 0x711540 microcode 70720
154 fallback/romstage 0x722a00 stage 54210
155 fallback/ramstage 0x72fe00 stage 96382
156 config 0x7476c0 raw 6075
157 fallback/vboot 0x748ec0 stage 15980
158 fallback/refcode 0x74cd80 stage 75578
159 fallback/payload 0x75f500 payload 62878
160 u-boot.dtb 0x76eb00 (unknown) 5318
161 (empty) 0x770000 null 196504
162 mrc.bin 0x79ffc0 (unknown) 222876
163 (empty) 0x7d66c0 null 167320
165 You can extract what you need:
167 cbfstool samus.bin extract -n pci8086,0406.rom -f vga.bin
168 cbfstool samus.bin extract -n fallback/refcode -f refcode.rmod
169 cbfstool samus.bin extract -n mrc.bin -f mrc.bin
170 cbfstool samus.bin extract -n fallback/refcode -f refcode.bin -U
172 Note that the -U flag is only supported by the latest cbfstool. It unpacks
173 and decompresses the stage to produce a coreboot rmodule. This is a simple
174 representation of an ELF file. You need the patch "Support decoding a stage
177 Put all 5 files into board/google/chromebook_samus.
179 Now you can build U-Boot and obtain u-boot.rom:
181 $ make chromebook_link_defconfig
184 If you are using em100, then this command will flash write -Boot:
186 em100 -s -d filename.rom -c W25Q64CV -r
190 Intel Crown Bay specific instructions for bare mode:
192 U-Boot support of Intel Crown Bay board [4] relies on a binary blob called
193 Firmware Support Package [5] to perform all the necessary initialization steps
194 as documented in the BIOS Writer Guide, including initialization of the CPU,
195 memory controller, chipset and certain bus interfaces.
197 Download the Intel FSP for Atom E6xx series and Platform Controller Hub EG20T,
198 install it on your host and locate the FSP binary blob. Note this platform
199 also requires a Chipset Micro Code (CMC) state machine binary to be present in
200 the SPI flash where u-boot.rom resides, and this CMC binary blob can be found
201 in this FSP package too.
203 * ./FSP/QUEENSBAY_FSP_GOLD_001_20-DECEMBER-2013.fd
204 * ./Microcode/C0_22211.BIN
206 Rename the first one to fsp.bin and second one to cmc.bin and put them in the
209 Note the FSP release version 001 has a bug which could cause random endless
210 loop during the FspInit call. This bug was published by Intel although Intel
211 did not describe any details. We need manually apply the patch to the FSP
212 binary using any hex editor (eg: bvi). Go to the offset 0x1fcd8 of the FSP
213 binary, change the following five bytes values from orginally E8 42 FF FF FF
216 As for the video ROM, you need manually extract it from the Intel provided
217 BIOS for Crown Bay here [6], using the AMI MMTool [7]. Check PCI option ROM
218 ID 8086:4108, extract and save it as vga.bin in the board directory.
220 Now you can build U-Boot and obtain u-boot.rom
222 $ make crownbay_defconfig
227 Intel Cougar Canyon 2 specific instructions for bare mode:
229 This uses Intel FSP for 3rd generation Intel Core and Intel Celeron processors
230 with mobile Intel HM76 and QM77 chipsets platform. Download it from Intel FSP
231 website and put the .fd file (CHIEFRIVER_FSP_GOLD_001_09-OCTOBER-2013.fd at the
232 time of writing) in the board directory and rename it to fsp.bin.
234 Now build U-Boot and obtain u-boot.rom
236 $ make cougarcanyon2_defconfig
239 The board has two 8MB SPI flashes mounted, which are called SPI-0 and SPI-1 in
240 the board manual. The SPI-0 flash should have flash descriptor plus ME firmware
241 and SPI-1 flash is used to store U-Boot. For convenience, the complete 8MB SPI-0
242 flash image is included in the FSP package (named Rom00_8M_MB_PPT.bin). Program
243 this image to the SPI-0 flash according to the board manual just once and we are
244 all set. For programming U-Boot we just need to program SPI-1 flash.
248 Intel Bay Trail based board instructions for bare mode:
250 This uses as FSP as with Crown Bay, except it is for the Atom E3800 series.
251 Two boards that use this configuration are Bayley Bay and Minnowboard MAX.
252 Download this and get the .fd file (BAYTRAIL_FSP_GOLD_003_16-SEP-2014.fd at
253 the time of writing). Put it in the corresponding board directory and rename
256 Obtain the VGA RAM (Vga.dat at the time of writing) and put it into the same
257 board directory as vga.bin.
259 You still need two more binary blobs. For Bayley Bay, they can be extracted
260 from the sample SPI image provided in the FSP (SPI.bin at the time of writing).
262 $ ./tools/ifdtool -x BayleyBay/SPI.bin
263 $ cp flashregion_0_flashdescriptor.bin board/intel/bayleybay/descriptor.bin
264 $ cp flashregion_2_intel_me.bin board/intel/bayleybay/me.bin
266 For Minnowboard MAX, we can reuse the same ME firmware above, but for flash
267 descriptor, we need get that somewhere else, as the one above does not seem to
268 work, probably because it is not designed for the Minnowboard MAX. Now download
269 the original firmware image for this board from:
271 http://firmware.intel.com/sites/default/files/2014-WW42.4-MinnowBoardMax.73-64-bit.bin_Release.zip
275 $ unzip 2014-WW42.4-MinnowBoardMax.73-64-bit.bin_Release.zip
277 Use ifdtool in the U-Boot tools directory to extract the images from that
280 $ ./tools/ifdtool -x MNW2MAX1.X64.0073.R02.1409160934.bin
282 This will provide the descriptor file - copy this into the correct place:
284 $ cp flashregion_0_flashdescriptor.bin board/intel/minnowmax/descriptor.bin
286 Now you can build U-Boot and obtain u-boot.rom
287 Note: below are examples/information for Minnowboard MAX.
289 $ make minnowmax_defconfig
292 Checksums are as follows (but note that newer versions will invalidate this):
294 $ md5sum -b board/intel/minnowmax/*.bin
295 ffda9a3b94df5b74323afb328d51e6b4 board/intel/minnowmax/descriptor.bin
296 69f65b9a580246291d20d08cbef9d7c5 board/intel/minnowmax/fsp.bin
297 894a97d371544ec21de9c3e8e1716c4b board/intel/minnowmax/me.bin
298 a2588537da387da592a27219d56e9962 board/intel/minnowmax/vga.bin
300 The ROM image is broken up into these parts:
302 Offset Description Controlling config
303 ------------------------------------------------------------
304 000000 descriptor.bin Hard-coded to 0 in ifdtool
305 001000 me.bin Set by the descriptor
307 6ef000 Environment CONFIG_ENV_OFFSET
308 6f0000 MRC cache CONFIG_ENABLE_MRC_CACHE
309 700000 u-boot-dtb.bin CONFIG_SYS_TEXT_BASE
310 790000 vga.bin CONFIG_VGA_BIOS_ADDR
311 7c0000 fsp.bin CONFIG_FSP_ADDR
312 7f8000 <spare> (depends on size of fsp.bin)
313 7ff800 U-Boot 16-bit boot CONFIG_SYS_X86_START16
315 Overall ROM image size is controlled by CONFIG_ROM_SIZE.
317 Note that the debug version of the FSP is bigger in size. If this version
318 is used, CONFIG_FSP_ADDR needs to be configured to 0xfffb0000 instead of
319 the default value 0xfffc0000.
323 Intel Galileo instructions for bare mode:
325 Only one binary blob is needed for Remote Management Unit (RMU) within Intel
326 Quark SoC. Not like FSP, U-Boot does not call into the binary. The binary is
327 needed by the Quark SoC itself.
329 You can get the binary blob from Quark Board Support Package from Intel website:
331 * ./QuarkSocPkg/QuarkNorthCluster/Binary/QuarkMicrocode/RMU.bin
333 Rename the file and put it to the board directory by:
335 $ cp RMU.bin board/intel/galileo/rmu.bin
337 Now you can build U-Boot and obtain u-boot.rom
339 $ make galileo_defconfig
344 QEMU x86 target instructions for bare mode:
346 To build u-boot.rom for QEMU x86 targets, just simply run
348 $ make qemu-x86_defconfig
351 Note this default configuration will build a U-Boot for the QEMU x86 i440FX
352 board. To build a U-Boot against QEMU x86 Q35 board, you can change the build
353 configuration during the 'make menuconfig' process like below:
355 Device Tree Control --->
357 (qemu-x86_q35) Default Device Tree for DT control
361 For testing U-Boot as the coreboot payload, there are things that need be paid
362 attention to. coreboot supports loading an ELF executable and a 32-bit plain
363 binary, as well as other supported payloads. With the default configuration,
364 U-Boot is set up to use a separate Device Tree Blob (dtb). As of today, the
365 generated u-boot-dtb.bin needs to be packaged by the cbfstool utility (a tool
366 provided by coreboot) manually as coreboot's 'make menuconfig' does not provide
367 this capability yet. The command is as follows:
369 # in the coreboot root directory
370 $ ./build/util/cbfstool/cbfstool build/coreboot.rom add-flat-binary \
371 -f u-boot-dtb.bin -n fallback/payload -c lzma -l 0x1110000 -e 0x1110000
373 Make sure 0x1110000 matches CONFIG_SYS_TEXT_BASE, which is the symbol address
374 of _x86boot_start (in arch/x86/cpu/start.S).
376 If you want to use ELF as the coreboot payload, change U-Boot configuration to
377 use CONFIG_OF_EMBED instead of CONFIG_OF_SEPARATE.
379 To enable video you must enable these options in coreboot:
381 - Set framebuffer graphics resolution (1280x1024 32k-color (1:5:5))
382 - Keep VESA framebuffer
384 And include coreboot_fb.dtsi in your board's device tree source file, like:
386 /include/ "coreboot_fb.dtsi"
388 At present it seems that for Minnowboard Max, coreboot does not pass through
389 the video information correctly (it always says the resolution is 0x0). This
390 works correctly for link though.
392 Note: coreboot framebuffer driver does not work on QEMU. The reason is unknown
393 at this point. Patches are welcome if you figure out anything wrong.
395 Test with QEMU for bare mode
396 ----------------------------
397 QEMU is a fancy emulator that can enable us to test U-Boot without access to
398 a real x86 board. Please make sure your QEMU version is 2.3.0 or above test
399 U-Boot. To launch QEMU with u-boot.rom, call QEMU as follows:
401 $ qemu-system-i386 -nographic -bios path/to/u-boot.rom
403 This will instantiate an emulated x86 board with i440FX and PIIX chipset. QEMU
404 also supports emulating an x86 board with Q35 and ICH9 based chipset, which is
405 also supported by U-Boot. To instantiate such a machine, call QEMU with:
407 $ qemu-system-i386 -nographic -bios path/to/u-boot.rom -M q35
409 Note by default QEMU instantiated boards only have 128 MiB system memory. But
410 it is enough to have U-Boot boot and function correctly. You can increase the
411 system memory by pass '-m' parameter to QEMU if you want more memory:
413 $ qemu-system-i386 -nographic -bios path/to/u-boot.rom -m 1024
415 This creates a board with 1 GiB system memory. Currently U-Boot for QEMU only
416 supports 3 GiB maximum system memory and reserves the last 1 GiB address space
417 for PCI device memory-mapped I/O and other stuff, so the maximum value of '-m'
420 QEMU emulates a graphic card which U-Boot supports. Removing '-nographic' will
421 show QEMU's VGA console window. Note this will disable QEMU's serial output.
422 If you want to check both consoles, use '-serial stdio'.
424 Multicore is also supported by QEMU via '-smp n' where n is the number of cores
425 to instantiate. Note, the maximum supported CPU number in QEMU is 255.
427 The fw_cfg interface in QEMU also provides information about kernel data,
428 initrd, command-line arguments and more. U-Boot supports directly accessing
429 these informtion from fw_cfg interface, which saves the time of loading them
430 from hard disk or network again, through emulated devices. To use it , simply
431 providing them in QEMU command line:
433 $ qemu-system-i386 -nographic -bios path/to/u-boot.rom -m 1024 -kernel /path/to/bzImage
434 -append 'root=/dev/ram console=ttyS0' -initrd /path/to/initrd -smp 8
436 Note: -initrd and -smp are both optional
438 Then start QEMU, in U-Boot command line use the following U-Boot command to
442 qfw - QEMU firmware interface
446 - list : print firmware(s) currently loaded
447 - cpus : print online cpu number
448 - load <kernel addr> <initrd addr> : load kernel and initrd (if any) and setup for zboot
451 loading kernel to address 01000000 size 5d9d30 initrd 04000000 size 1b1ab50
453 Here the kernel (bzImage) is loaded to 01000000 and initrd is to 04000000. Then,
454 'zboot' can be used to boot the kernel:
456 => zboot 01000000 - 04000000 1b1ab50
460 Modern CPUs usually require a special bit stream called microcode [8] to be
461 loaded on the processor after power up in order to function properly. U-Boot
462 has already integrated these as hex dumps in the source tree.
466 On a multicore system, U-Boot is executed on the bootstrap processor (BSP).
467 Additional application processors (AP) can be brought up by U-Boot. In order to
468 have an SMP kernel to discover all of the available processors, U-Boot needs to
469 prepare configuration tables which contain the multi-CPUs information before
470 loading the OS kernel. Currently U-Boot supports generating two types of tables
471 for SMP, called Simple Firmware Interface (SFI) [9] and Multi-Processor (MP)
472 [10] tables. The writing of these two tables are controlled by two Kconfig
473 options GENERATE_SFI_TABLE and GENERATE_MP_TABLE.
477 x86 has been converted to use driver model for serial, GPIO, SPI, SPI flash,
478 keyboard, real-time clock, USB. Video is in progress.
482 x86 uses device tree to configure the board thus requires CONFIG_OF_CONTROL to
483 be turned on. Not every device on the board is configured via device tree, but
484 more and more devices will be added as time goes by. Check out the directory
485 arch/x86/dts/ for these device tree source files.
489 In keeping with the U-Boot philosophy of providing functions to check and
490 adjust internal settings, there are several x86-specific commands that may be
493 fsp - Display information about Intel Firmware Support Package (FSP).
494 This is only available on platforms which use FSP, mostly Atom.
495 iod - Display I/O memory
496 iow - Write I/O memory
497 mtrr - List and set the Memory Type Range Registers (MTRR). These are used to
498 tell the CPU whether memory is cacheable and if so the cache write
499 mode to use. U-Boot sets up some reasonable values but you can
500 adjust then with this command.
504 As an example of how to set up your boot flow with U-Boot, here are
505 instructions for starting Ubuntu from U-Boot. These instructions have been
506 tested on Minnowboard MAX with a SATA drive but are equally applicable on
507 other platforms and other media. There are really only four steps and it's a
508 very simple script, but a more detailed explanation is provided here for
511 Note: It is possible to set up U-Boot to boot automatically using syslinux.
512 It could also use the grub.cfg file (/efi/ubuntu/grub.cfg) to obtain the
513 GUID. If you figure these out, please post patches to this README.
515 Firstly, you will need Ubuntu installed on an available disk. It should be
516 possible to make U-Boot start a USB start-up disk but for now let's assume
517 that you used another boot loader to install Ubuntu.
519 Use the U-Boot command line to find the UUID of the partition you want to
520 boot. For example our disk is SCSI device 0:
524 Partition Map for SCSI device 0 -- Partition Type: EFI
526 Part Start LBA End LBA Name
530 1 0x00000800 0x001007ff ""
531 attrs: 0x0000000000000000
532 type: c12a7328-f81f-11d2-ba4b-00a0c93ec93b
533 guid: 9d02e8e4-4d59-408f-a9b0-fd497bc9291c
534 2 0x00100800 0x037d8fff ""
535 attrs: 0x0000000000000000
536 type: 0fc63daf-8483-4772-8e79-3d69d8477de4
537 guid: 965c59ee-1822-4326-90d2-b02446050059
538 3 0x037d9000 0x03ba27ff ""
539 attrs: 0x0000000000000000
540 type: 0657fd6d-a4ab-43c4-84e5-0933c84b4f4f
541 guid: 2c4282bd-1e82-4bcf-a5ff-51dedbf39f17
544 This shows that your SCSI disk has three partitions. The really long hex
545 strings are called Globally Unique Identifiers (GUIDs). You can look up the
546 'type' ones here [11]. On this disk the first partition is for EFI and is in
547 VFAT format (DOS/Windows):
555 Partition 2 is 'Linux filesystem data' so that will be our root disk. It is
561 <DIR> 16384 lost+found
584 <SYM> 33 initrd.img.old
587 and if you look in the /boot directory you will see the kernel:
589 => ext2ls scsi 0:2 /boot
594 3381262 System.map-3.13.0-32-generic
595 1162712 abi-3.13.0-32-generic
596 165611 config-3.13.0-32-generic
597 176500 memtest86+.bin
598 178176 memtest86+.elf
599 178680 memtest86+_multiboot.bin
600 5798112 vmlinuz-3.13.0-32-generic
601 165762 config-3.13.0-58-generic
602 1165129 abi-3.13.0-58-generic
603 5823136 vmlinuz-3.13.0-58-generic
604 19215259 initrd.img-3.13.0-58-generic
605 3391763 System.map-3.13.0-58-generic
606 5825048 vmlinuz-3.13.0-58-generic.efi.signed
607 28304443 initrd.img-3.13.0-32-generic
610 The 'vmlinuz' files contain a packaged Linux kernel. The format is a kind of
611 self-extracting compressed file mixed with some 'setup' configuration data.
612 Despite its size (uncompressed it is >10MB) this only includes a basic set of
613 device drivers, enough to boot on most hardware types.
615 The 'initrd' files contain a RAM disk. This is something that can be loaded
616 into RAM and will appear to Linux like a disk. Ubuntu uses this to hold lots
617 of drivers for whatever hardware you might have. It is loaded before the
618 real root disk is accessed.
620 The numbers after the end of each file are the version. Here it is Linux
621 version 3.13. You can find the source code for this in the Linux tree with
622 the tag v3.13. The '.0' allows for additional Linux releases to fix problems,
623 but normally this is not needed. The '-58' is used by Ubuntu. Each time they
624 release a new kernel they increment this number. New Ubuntu versions might
625 include kernel patches to fix reported bugs. Stable kernels can exist for
626 some years so this number can get quite high.
628 The '.efi.signed' kernel is signed for EFI's secure boot. U-Boot has its own
629 secure boot mechanism - see [12] [13] and cannot read .efi files at present.
631 To boot Ubuntu from U-Boot the steps are as follows:
633 1. Set up the boot arguments. Use the GUID for the partition you want to
636 => setenv bootargs root=/dev/disk/by-partuuid/965c59ee-1822-4326-90d2-b02446050059 ro
638 Here root= tells Linux the location of its root disk. The disk is specified
639 by its GUID, using '/dev/disk/by-partuuid/', a Linux path to a 'directory'
640 containing all the GUIDs Linux has found. When it starts up, there will be a
641 file in that directory with this name in it. It is also possible to use a
642 device name here, see later.
644 2. Load the kernel. Since it is an ext2/4 filesystem we can do:
646 => ext2load scsi 0:2 03000000 /boot/vmlinuz-3.13.0-58-generic
648 The address 30000000 is arbitrary, but there seem to be problems with using
649 small addresses (sometimes Linux cannot find the ramdisk). This is 48MB into
650 the start of RAM (which is at 0 on x86).
652 3. Load the ramdisk (to 64MB):
654 => ext2load scsi 0:2 04000000 /boot/initrd.img-3.13.0-58-generic
656 4. Start up the kernel. We need to know the size of the ramdisk, but can use
657 a variable for that. U-Boot sets 'filesize' to the size of the last file it
660 => zboot 03000000 0 04000000 ${filesize}
662 Type 'help zboot' if you want to see what the arguments are. U-Boot on x86 is
663 quite verbose when it boots a kernel. You should see these messages from
667 Setup Size = 0x00004400
668 Magic signature found
669 Using boot protocol version 2.0c
670 Linux kernel version 3.13.0-58-generic (buildd@allspice) #97-Ubuntu SMP Wed Jul 8 02:56:15 UTC 2015
671 Building boot_params at 0x00090000
672 Loading bzImage at address 100000 (5805728 bytes)
673 Magic signature found
674 Initial RAM disk at linear address 0x04000000, size 19215259 bytes
675 Kernel command line: "root=/dev/disk/by-partuuid/965c59ee-1822-4326-90d2-b02446050059 ro"
679 U-Boot prints out some bootstage timing. This is more useful if you put the
680 above commands into a script since then it will be faster.
682 Timer summary in microseconds:
685 241,535 241,535 board_init_r
686 2,421,611 2,180,076 id=64
688 2,428,215 6,425 main_loop
689 48,860,584 46,432,369 start_kernel
693 1,422,704 vesa display
695 Now the kernel actually starts: (if you want to examine kernel boot up message
696 on the serial console, append "console=ttyS0,115200" to the kernel command line)
698 [ 0.000000] Initializing cgroup subsys cpuset
699 [ 0.000000] Initializing cgroup subsys cpu
700 [ 0.000000] Initializing cgroup subsys cpuacct
701 [ 0.000000] Linux version 3.13.0-58-generic (buildd@allspice) (gcc version 4.8.2 (Ubuntu 4.8.2-19ubuntu1) ) #97-Ubuntu SMP Wed Jul 8 02:56:15 UTC 2015 (Ubuntu 3.13.0-58.97-generic 3.13.11-ckt22)
702 [ 0.000000] Command line: root=/dev/disk/by-partuuid/965c59ee-1822-4326-90d2-b02446050059 ro console=ttyS0,115200
704 It continues for a long time. Along the way you will see it pick up your
707 [ 0.000000] RAMDISK: [mem 0x04000000-0x05253fff]
709 [ 0.788540] Trying to unpack rootfs image as initramfs...
710 [ 1.540111] Freeing initrd memory: 18768K (ffff880004000000 - ffff880005254000)
713 Later it actually starts using it:
715 Begin: Running /scripts/local-premount ... done.
717 You should also see your boot disk turn up:
719 [ 4.357243] scsi 1:0:0:0: Direct-Access ATA ADATA SP310 5.2 PQ: 0 ANSI: 5
720 [ 4.366860] sd 1:0:0:0: [sda] 62533296 512-byte logical blocks: (32.0 GB/29.8 GiB)
721 [ 4.375677] sd 1:0:0:0: Attached scsi generic sg0 type 0
722 [ 4.381859] sd 1:0:0:0: [sda] Write Protect is off
723 [ 4.387452] sd 1:0:0:0: [sda] Write cache: enabled, read cache: enabled, doesn't support DPO or FUA
724 [ 4.399535] sda: sda1 sda2 sda3
726 Linux has found the three partitions (sda1-3). Mercifully it doesn't print out
727 the GUIDs. In step 1 above we could have used:
729 setenv bootargs root=/dev/sda2 ro
731 instead of the GUID. However if you add another drive to your board the
732 numbering may change whereas the GUIDs will not. So if your boot partition
733 becomes sdb2, it will still boot. For embedded systems where you just want to
734 boot the first disk, you have that option.
736 The last thing you will see on the console is mention of plymouth (which
737 displays the Ubuntu start-up screen) and a lot of 'Starting' messages:
739 * Starting Mount filesystems on boot [ OK ]
741 After a pause you should see a login screen on your display and you are done.
743 If you want to put this in a script you can use something like this:
745 setenv bootargs root=UUID=b2aaf743-0418-4d90-94cc-3e6108d7d968 ro
746 setenv boot zboot 03000000 0 04000000 \${filesize}
747 setenv bootcmd "ext2load scsi 0:2 03000000 /boot/vmlinuz-3.13.0-58-generic; ext2load scsi 0:2 04000000 /boot/initrd.img-3.13.0-58-generic; run boot"
750 The \ is to tell the shell not to evaluate ${filesize} as part of the setenv
753 You can also bake this behaviour into your build by hard-coding the
754 environment variables if you add this to minnowmax.h:
756 #undef CONFIG_BOOTARGS
757 #undef CONFIG_BOOTCOMMAND
759 #define CONFIG_BOOTARGS \
761 #define CONFIG_BOOTCOMMAND \
762 "ext2load scsi 0:2 03000000 /boot/vmlinuz-3.13.0-58-generic; " \
763 "ext2load scsi 0:2 04000000 /boot/initrd.img-3.13.0-58-generic; " \
766 #undef CONFIG_EXTRA_ENV_SETTINGS
767 #define CONFIG_EXTRA_ENV_SETTINGS "boot=zboot 03000000 0 04000000 ${filesize}"
771 SeaBIOS [14] is an open source implementation of a 16-bit x86 BIOS. It can run
772 in an emulator or natively on x86 hardware with the use of U-Boot. With its
773 help, we can boot some OSes that require 16-bit BIOS services like Windows/DOS.
775 As U-Boot, we have to manually create a table where SeaBIOS gets various system
776 information (eg: E820) from. The table unfortunately has to follow the coreboot
777 table format as SeaBIOS currently supports booting as a coreboot payload.
779 To support loading SeaBIOS, U-Boot should be built with CONFIG_SEABIOS on.
780 Booting SeaBIOS is done via U-Boot's bootelf command, like below:
782 => tftp bios.bin.elf;bootelf
784 TFTP from server 10.10.0.100; our IP address is 10.10.0.108
786 Bytes transferred = 122124 (1dd0c hex)
787 ## Starting application at 0x000ff06e ...
788 SeaBIOS (version rel-1.9.0)
791 bios.bin.elf is the SeaBIOS image built from SeaBIOS source tree.
792 Make sure it is built as follows:
796 Inside the "General Features" menu, select "Build for coreboot" as the
797 "Build Target". Inside the "Debugging" menu, turn on "Serial port debugging"
798 so that we can see something as soon as SeaBIOS boots. Leave other options
799 as in their default state. Then,
803 Total size: 121888 Fixed: 66496 Free: 9184 (used 93.0% of 128KiB rom)
804 Creating out/bios.bin.elf
806 Currently this is tested on QEMU x86 target with U-Boot chain-loading SeaBIOS
807 to install/boot a Windows XP OS (below for example command to install Windows).
809 # Create a 10G disk.img as the virtual hard disk
810 $ qemu-img create -f qcow2 disk.img 10G
812 # Install a Windows XP OS from an ISO image 'winxp.iso'
813 $ qemu-system-i386 -serial stdio -bios u-boot.rom -hda disk.img -cdrom winxp.iso -smp 2 -m 512
815 # Boot a Windows XP OS installed on the virutal hard disk
816 $ qemu-system-i386 -serial stdio -bios u-boot.rom -hda disk.img -smp 2 -m 512
818 This is also tested on Intel Crown Bay board with a PCIe graphics card, booting
819 SeaBIOS then chain-loading a GRUB on a USB drive, then Linux kernel finally.
821 If you are using Intel Integrated Graphics Device (IGD) as the primary display
822 device on your board, SeaBIOS needs to be patched manually to get its VGA ROM
823 loaded and run by SeaBIOS. SeaBIOS locates VGA ROM via the PCI expansion ROM
824 register, but IGD device does not have its VGA ROM mapped by this register.
825 Its VGA ROM is packaged as part of u-boot.rom at a configurable flash address
826 which is unknown to SeaBIOS. An example patch is needed for SeaBIOS below:
828 diff --git a/src/optionroms.c b/src/optionroms.c
829 index 65f7fe0..c7b6f5e 100644
830 --- a/src/optionroms.c
831 +++ b/src/optionroms.c
832 @@ -324,6 +324,8 @@ init_pcirom(struct pci_device *pci, int isvga, u64 *sources)
833 rom = deploy_romfile(file);
834 else if (RunPCIroms > 1 || (RunPCIroms == 1 && isvga))
835 rom = map_pcirom(pci);
836 + if (pci->bdf == pci_to_bdf(0, 2, 0))
837 + rom = (struct rom_header *)0xfff90000;
842 Note: the patch above expects IGD device is at PCI b.d.f 0.2.0 and its VGA ROM
843 is at 0xfff90000 which corresponds to CONFIG_VGA_BIOS_ADDR on Minnowboard MAX.
844 Change these two accordingly if this is not the case on your board.
848 These notes are for those who want to port U-Boot to a new x86 platform.
850 Since x86 CPUs boot from SPI flash, a SPI flash emulator is a good investment.
851 The Dediprog em100 can be used on Linux. The em100 tool is available here:
853 http://review.coreboot.org/p/em100.git
855 On Minnowboard Max the following command line can be used:
857 sudo em100 -s -p LOW -d u-boot.rom -c W25Q64DW -r
859 A suitable clip for connecting over the SPI flash chip is here:
861 http://www.dediprog.com/pd/programmer-accessories/EM-TC-8
863 This allows you to override the SPI flash contents for development purposes.
864 Typically you can write to the em100 in around 1200ms, considerably faster
865 than programming the real flash device each time. The only important
866 limitation of the em100 is that it only supports SPI bus speeds up to 20MHz.
867 This means that images must be set to boot with that speed. This is an
868 Intel-specific feature - e.g. tools/ifttool has an option to set the SPI
869 speed in the SPI descriptor region.
871 If your chip/board uses an Intel Firmware Support Package (FSP) it is fairly
872 easy to fit it in. You can follow the Minnowboard Max implementation, for
873 example. Hopefully you will just need to create new files similar to those
874 in arch/x86/cpu/baytrail which provide Bay Trail support.
876 If you are not using an FSP you have more freedom and more responsibility.
877 The ivybridge support works this way, although it still uses a ROM for
878 graphics and still has binary blobs containing Intel code. You should aim to
879 support all important peripherals on your platform including video and storage.
880 Use the device tree for configuration where possible.
882 For the microcode you can create a suitable device tree file using the
885 ./tools/microcode-tool -d microcode.dat -m <model> create
887 or if you only have header files and not the full Intel microcode.dat database:
889 ./tools/microcode-tool -H BAY_TRAIL_FSP_KIT/Microcode/M0130673322.h \
890 -H BAY_TRAIL_FSP_KIT/Microcode/M0130679901.h \
893 These are written to arch/x86/dts/microcode/ by default.
895 Note that it is possible to just add the micrcode for your CPU if you know its
896 model. U-Boot prints this information when it starts
898 CPU: x86_64, vendor Intel, device 30673h
900 so here we can use the M0130673322 file.
902 If you platform can display POST codes on two little 7-segment displays on
903 the board, then you can use post_code() calls from C or assembler to monitor
904 boot progress. This can be good for debugging.
906 If not, you can try to get serial working as early as possible. The early
907 debug serial port may be useful here. See setup_internal_uart() for an example.
909 During the U-Boot porting, one of the important steps is to write correct PIRQ
910 routing information in the board device tree. Without it, device drivers in the
911 Linux kernel won't function correctly due to interrupt is not working. Please
912 refer to U-Boot doc [15] for the device tree bindings of Intel interrupt router.
913 Here we have more details on the intel,pirq-routing property below.
915 intel,pirq-routing = <
916 PCI_BDF(0, 2, 0) INTA PIRQA
920 As you see each entry has 3 cells. For the first one, we need describe all pci
921 devices mounted on the board. For SoC devices, normally there is a chapter on
922 the chipset datasheet which lists all the available PCI devices. For example on
923 Bay Trail, this is chapter 4.3 (PCI configuration space). For the second one, we
924 can get the interrupt pin either from datasheet or hardware via U-Boot shell.
925 The reliable source is the hardware as sometimes chipset datasheet is not 100%
926 up-to-date. Type 'pci header' plus the device's pci bus/device/function number
927 from U-Boot shell below.
933 interrupt line = 0x09
937 It shows this PCI device is using INTD pin as it reports 4 in the interrupt pin
938 register. Repeat this until you get interrupt pins for all the devices. The last
939 cell is the PIRQ line which a particular interrupt pin is mapped to. On Intel
940 chipset, the power-up default mapping is INTA/B/C/D maps to PIRQA/B/C/D. This
941 can be changed by registers in LPC bridge. So far Intel FSP does not touch those
942 registers so we can write down the PIRQ according to the default mapping rule.
944 Once we get the PIRQ routing information in the device tree, the interrupt
945 allocation and assignment will be done by U-Boot automatically. Now you can
946 enable CONFIG_GENERATE_PIRQ_TABLE for testing Linux kernel using i8259 PIC and
947 CONFIG_GENERATE_MP_TABLE for testing Linux kernel using local APIC and I/O APIC.
949 This script might be useful. If you feed it the output of 'pci long' from
950 U-Boot then it will generate a device tree fragment with the interrupt
951 configuration for each device (note it needs gawk 4.0.0):
953 $ cat console_output |awk '/PCI/ {device=$4} /interrupt line/ {line=$4} \
954 /interrupt pin/ {pin = $4; if (pin != "0x00" && pin != "0xff") \
955 {patsplit(device, bdf, "[0-9a-f]+"); \
956 printf "PCI_BDF(%d, %d, %d) INT%c PIRQ%c\n", strtonum("0x" bdf[1]), \
957 strtonum("0x" bdf[2]), bdf[3], strtonum(pin) + 64, 64 + strtonum(pin)}}'
960 PCI_BDF(0, 2, 0) INTA PIRQA
961 PCI_BDF(0, 3, 0) INTA PIRQA
967 Quark-specific considerations:
969 To port U-Boot to other boards based on the Intel Quark SoC, a few things need
970 to be taken care of. The first important part is the Memory Reference Code (MRC)
971 parameters. Quark MRC supports memory-down configuration only. All these MRC
972 parameters are supplied via the board device tree. To get started, first copy
973 the MRC section of arch/x86/dts/galileo.dts to your board's device tree, then
974 change these values by consulting board manuals or your hardware vendor.
975 Available MRC parameter values are listed in include/dt-bindings/mrc/quark.h.
976 The other tricky part is with PCIe. Quark SoC integrates two PCIe root ports,
977 but by default they are held in reset after power on. In U-Boot, PCIe
978 initialization is properly handled as per Quark's firmware writer guide.
979 In your board support codes, you need provide two routines to aid PCIe
980 initialization, which are board_assert_perst() and board_deassert_perst().
981 The two routines need implement a board-specific mechanism to assert/deassert
982 PCIe PERST# pin. Care must be taken that in those routines that any APIs that
983 may trigger PCI enumeration process are strictly forbidden, as any access to
984 PCIe root port's configuration registers will cause system hang while it is
985 held in reset. For more details, check how they are implemented by the Intel
986 Galileo board support codes in board/intel/galileo/galileo.c.
990 See scripts/coreboot.sed which can assist with porting coreboot code into
991 U-Boot drivers. It will not resolve all build errors, but will perform common
992 transformations. Remember to add attribution to coreboot for new files added
993 to U-Boot. This should go at the top of each file and list the coreboot
994 filename where the code originated.
996 Debugging ACPI issues with Windows:
998 Windows might cache system information and only detect ACPI changes if you
999 modify the ACPI table versions. So tweak them liberally when debugging ACPI
1000 issues with Windows.
1004 Advanced Configuration and Power Interface (ACPI) [16] aims to establish
1005 industry-standard interfaces enabling OS-directed configuration, power
1006 management, and thermal management of mobile, desktop, and server platforms.
1008 Linux can boot without ACPI with "acpi=off" command line parameter, but
1009 with ACPI the kernel gains the capabilities to handle power management.
1010 For Windows, ACPI is a must-have firmware feature since Windows Vista.
1011 CONFIG_GENERATE_ACPI_TABLE is the config option to turn on ACPI support in
1012 U-Boot. This requires Intel ACPI compiler to be installed on your host to
1013 compile ACPI DSDT table written in ASL format to AML format. You can get
1014 the compiler via "apt-get install iasl" if you are on Ubuntu or download
1015 the source from [17] to compile one by yourself.
1017 Current ACPI support in U-Boot is not complete. More features will be added
1018 in the future. The status as of today is:
1020 * Support generating RSDT, XSDT, FACS, FADT, MADT, MCFG tables.
1021 * Support one static DSDT table only, compiled by Intel ACPI compiler.
1022 * Support S0/S5, reboot and shutdown from OS.
1023 * Support booting a pre-installed Ubuntu distribution via 'zboot' command.
1024 * Support installing and booting Ubuntu 14.04 (or above) from U-Boot with
1025 the help of SeaBIOS using legacy interface (non-UEFI mode).
1026 * Support installing and booting Windows 8.1/10 from U-Boot with the help
1027 of SeaBIOS using legacy interface (non-UEFI mode).
1028 * Support ACPI interrupts with SCI only.
1030 Features not supported so far (to make it a complete ACPI solution):
1031 * S3 (Suspend to RAM), S4 (Suspend to Disk).
1033 Features that are optional:
1034 * Dynamic AML bytecodes insertion at run-time. We may need this to support
1035 SSDT table generation and DSDT fix up.
1036 * SMI support. Since U-Boot is a modern bootloader, we don't want to bring
1037 those legacy stuff into U-Boot. ACPI spec allows a system that does not
1038 support SMI (a legacy-free system).
1040 ACPI was initially enabled on BayTrail based boards. Testing was done by booting
1041 a pre-installed Ubuntu 14.04 from a SATA drive. Installing Ubuntu 14.04 and
1042 Windows 8.1/10 to a SATA drive and booting from there is also tested. Most
1043 devices seem to work correctly and the board can respond a reboot/shutdown
1044 command from the OS.
1046 For other platform boards, ACPI support status can be checked by examining their
1047 board defconfig files to see if CONFIG_GENERATE_ACPI_TABLE is set to y.
1051 U-Boot supports booting as a 32-bit or 64-bit EFI payload, e.g. with UEFI.
1052 This is enabled with CONFIG_EFI_STUB. U-Boot can also run as an EFI
1053 application, with CONFIG_EFI_APP. The CONFIG_EFI_LOADER option, where U-Booot
1054 provides an EFI environment to the kernel (i.e. replaces UEFI completely but
1055 provides the same EFI run-time services) is not currently supported on x86.
1057 See README.efi for details of EFI support in U-Boot.
1061 U-Boot supports booting a 64-bit kernel directly and is able to change to
1062 64-bit mode to do so. It also supports (with CONFIG_EFI_STUB) booting from
1063 both 32-bit and 64-bit UEFI. However, U-Boot itself is currently always built
1064 in 32-bit mode. Some access to the full memory range is provided with
1067 The development work to make U-Boot itself run in 64-bit mode has not yet
1068 been attempted. The best approach would likely be to build a 32-bit SPL
1069 image for U-Boot, with CONFIG_SPL_BUILD. This could then handle the early CPU
1070 init in 16-bit and 32-bit mode, running the FSP and any other binaries that
1071 are needed. Then it could change to 64-bit model and jump to U-Boot proper.
1073 Given U-Boot's extensive 64-bit support this has not been a high priority,
1074 but it would be a nice addition.
1079 - Chrome OS verified boot
1080 - Support for CONFIG_EFI_LOADER
1081 - Building U-Boot to run in 64-bit mode
1085 [1] http://www.coreboot.org
1086 [2] http://www.qemu.org
1087 [3] http://www.coreboot.org/~stepan/pci8086,0166.rom
1088 [4] http://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/embedded/design-tools/evaluation-platforms/atom-e660-eg20t-development-kit.html
1089 [5] http://www.intel.com/fsp
1090 [6] http://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/secure/intelligent-systems/privileged/e6xx-35-b1-cmc22211.html
1091 [7] http://www.ami.com/products/bios-uefi-tools-and-utilities/bios-uefi-utilities/
1092 [8] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microcode
1093 [9] http://simplefirmware.org
1094 [10] http://www.intel.com/design/archives/processors/pro/docs/242016.htm
1095 [11] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GUID_Partition_Table
1096 [12] http://events.linuxfoundation.org/sites/events/files/slides/chromeos_and_diy_vboot_0.pdf
1097 [13] http://events.linuxfoundation.org/sites/events/files/slides/elce-2014.pdf
1098 [14] http://www.seabios.org/SeaBIOS
1099 [15] doc/device-tree-bindings/misc/intel,irq-router.txt
1100 [16] http://www.acpi.info
1101 [17] https://www.acpica.org/downloads