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| SeaBIOS | |
|---|---|
 SeaBIOS is the default BIOS forQEMU | |
| Developer | Kevin O'Connor |
| Initial release | February 25, 2008 (2008-02-25) |
| Stable release | |
| Written in | C |
| Platform | x86 |
| Included with | KVM,QEMU |
| Standard | SMBIOS |
| Available in | English |
| Type | BIOS |
| License | LGPLv3 |
| Website | www |
| Repository | |
SeaBIOS is anopen-source implementation of anx86BIOS, serving as a freely availablefirmware for x86 systems. Aiming for compatibility, it supports standard BIOS features and callinginterfaces that are implemented by a typical proprietary x86 BIOS. SeaBIOS can either run on bare hardware as acoreboot payload, or can be used directly inemulators such asQEMU andBochs.
Initially, SeaBIOS was based on the open-source BIOS implementation included with the Bochs emulator. The project was created with intentions to allow native usage on x86 hardware, and to be based on an improved and more easily extendable internalsource code implementation.[2]: 3–5
Features supported by SeaBIOS include the following:
A patch exists to load theSLIC table from a licensed OEM Windows BIOS.[3]
It does not supportESCD. SeaBIOS does not support eitherIntel ME orAMD PSP or their modules.
SeaBIOS's boot device selection menu can be accessed by pressingEsc during the boot process.
SeaBIOS can run natively on x86 hardware, in which case it is usually loaded as acoreboot payload; it can run on386 and newer processors, and requires a minimum of 1 MB ofRAM. SeaBIOS also runs inside an emulator; it is the default BIOS for theQEMU andKVM virtualization environments, and can be used with theBochs emulator. It is also included in someChromebooks, although it is not used byChromeOS.[4]
Most of the SeaBIOS source code is written inC, with its build system relying on the standardGNU toolchain.[2]: 5–7 SeaBIOS has been tested with various bootloaders and operating systems, includingGNU GRUB,LILO,SYSLINUX,Microsoft Windows,Linux,FreeDOS,FreeBSD,NetBSD andOpenBSD.[5]
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