Linux as Firmware

Tired of reinventing the wheel by implementing drivers for firmware again and again?
Not with LinuxBoot!

What?

LinuxBoot is a firmware for modern servers that replaces specific firmware functionality like the UEFI DXE phase with a Linux kernel and runtime.

It started as NERF in January 2017 at Google.

LinuxBoot is a Linux Foundation project and as such has a technical charter.

Why?

Improves boot reliability by replacing lightly-tested firmware drivers with hardened Linux drivers.
Improves boot time by removing unnecessary code. Typically makes boot 20 times faster.
Allows customization of the initrd runtime to support site-specific needs (both device drivers as well as custom executables).
Proven approach for almost 20 years in military, consumer electronics, and supercomputing systems – wherever reliability and performance are paramount.

Getting Started

git clone https://github.com/linuxboot/linuxboot
cd linuxboot
make \
	     BOARD=qemu \
	     KERNEL=../path/to/bzImage \
	     INITRD=../path/to/initrd.cpio.xz \
	     config
make

The kernel must be built with CONFIG_EFI_BDS. Follow further instructions on our GitHub.

LinuxBoot Book

The official documentation for LinuxBoot is the LinuxBoot Book, where you can find information on how LinuxBoot works, how to build the various flavours (e.g. coreboot/LinuxBoot or UEFI PEI/LinuxBoot), the u-root ramfs builder, etc.

Fortnightly meeting

We had open meetings every two weeks welcoming everyone to discuss about the latest news, upcoming talks and events, and so on.

The meeting notes are kept in a Google doc.

Contact

The following are just a subset of the organizations and people ivolved.

Organizations Involved

Technical Steering Committee

Ron Minnich (Google)
Jean-Marie Verdun (Horizon Computing)
Philipp Deppenwiese (9elements Cyber Security)