(UEFI) Dell XPS 15z L511z modded BIOS - and HOWTO

[jkbuha]

Fair point. I don't use PXE, and have usually needed more a failsafe boot manager in rom to access the right partitions.
That said, if there is another way to enable (correctly) network PXE boot using PLOP I'd like to know...

[kasar]

I think follow_me can help us with that if we manage to add the plop room to the bios, it doesnt matter if it is unlinked like the internal shell were.

he managed to write a small efi app wich added a executable, like the shell to the boot menu, he probably would be able probably do the same with plop.

aparently that altered some kind of stuff in cvar, so if we manage to alter the default options and add the extra boot entries, it would be interesting, specially for normal users wich just want to flash the bios and play, because they wouldn't need to run a external shell to run efi files in order to enable the aditional features.

[follow_me]

@TimeWalker, @kasar - on the same page kasar gave you , there is DXE driver, you can replace floppy driver and you will have shell enabled permanently even in recovery mode

Yep , I can help - but how about EDK's default bootloader from Intel ? I think it is better one to integrate (in sense of bootloaders), if you want PXE,I can make a driver to integrate PLOP loader

[kasar]

floppy? why sacrifice floppy?
I have a usb floppy drive over here.

if we need to sacrify something ... there wasnt an ISA driver somewhere?
I think no one would miss that, and also, we would put all the new modules calling into that one, like shell, plop, xtu overclocking modules .. etc

about EDK default loader, wich one is that?

[follow_me]

about EDK default loader, wich one is that?

There is sample UEFI rom in EDK , it contains reference realization of UEFI spec. It can be run using VirtualBox or qemu(I'm using qemu, about vb you should ask @jkbuha ). This rom contains boot manager from Intel , ant it is awesome ! Realy want it in my nb
here is the link to http://tianocore.sourceforge.net/wiki/OVMF

[jkbuha]

Agreed on OVMF - it is the better bootloader out there

OVMF is already integrated as (an optional) EFI bootloader: http://www.virtualbox.org/svn/vbox/trunk...e/OvmfPkg/

Should be relatively easy to compile with edk2 and integrate as a ROM...

[kasar]

never used that efi bootloader

so I decided to install QEMU and try it






as far I noticed it have at least the efi shell and maybe PXE.

what more uses it have? ^^

also I am a big noob while trying to set a enviroment for compile, so let me to know if you compile yours

anyway, what would be the size of OVMF? the fd file I downloaded is about 1 MB ...., a little big, I hope it will became smaller when you guys compile it to be compatible to be integrated in our existing firmwares, anyway what you have in mind to replace with the OVMF bootloader?

existing efi shell? existing PXE rom?

[follow_me]

Should be relatively easy to compile with edk2 and integrate as a ROM...

Unfortunately not, it is tied up to other system components, and it's not so easy to get it as a separate image

@kasar

what more uses it have? ^^

It can edit boot configuration on a live system , which means you can boot from any mapped image or device

@jkbuha can you help @kasar with dev env ? I'm using linux and it's a bit different in setup

[kasar]

It can edit boot configuration on a live system , which means you can boot from any mapped image or device

@jkbuha can you help @kasar with dev env ? I'm using linux and it's a bit different in setup

oh, thanks for the info

so the last screenshot I posted, is part of it?

I wasnt sure it was part of it or from some default bios from QEMU


well, relating set a dev env, you guys probably would need to have a lot of patience with me, so not sure if you still interested ...

[jkbuha]

With pleasure @kasar - we're all here to learn....

So this is what I normally do to build a dev environment:

1) Create a VM (VMware, Qemu, Virtualbox) <- this is strongly recommended
2) Install Win7-64Bit (note: must be 64-bit, even in a VM) with VS 2008/2010/2012 x86/x64 (any of these work well with Tiano)
3) Download zip and follow UEFI environment build instructions from https://github.com/tianocore/tianocore.g...w-to-Build
4) Right, you now have a UEFI build environment. To build everything, in the root folder type "edksetup --nt32" followed by "build -t VS2008x86" <- this is for Win7-64bit & VS2008 32-bit, it varies depending on what VS you've installed.
5) Success! Now you can start experimenting with basic .efi programs. Suggest you look here: http://tianocore.sourceforge.net/wiki/Windows_systems (note the last point describes OVMF and how to build)

Further helpful references:
http://uefi.blogspot.co.uk/2010/02/how-t...-uefi.html
http://tianocore.sourceforge.net/wiki/

Let me know if you need any help!