QEMU and Libreboot

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GNUbahn
Desconectado
Joined: 02/18/2016

On libreboot.org these instructions can be found:

QEMU

Libreboot comes with ROM images built for QEMU, by default:

Examples of how to use libreboot ROM images in QEMU:

$ qemu-system-i386 -M q35 -m 512 -bios qemu_q35_ich9_keymap_mode.rom
$ qemu-system-i386 -M pc -m 512 -bios qemu_i440fx_piix4_keymap_mode.rom

You can optionally specify the -serial stdio argument, so that QEMU will emulate a serial terminal on the standard input/output (most likely your terminal emulator or TTY).

Other arguments are available for QEMU. The manual will contain more information.

Can somebody translate this? What exactly does it mean?

Soon.to.be.Free
Desconectado
Joined: 07/03/2016

I assume below you know enough already to get an OS running in QEMU- if not, please say so and I'm sure someone will be able to help.

Firstly, if your intention with Libreboot is to avoid propietary software, please be aware that QEMU doesn't use a proprietary BIOS/firmware anyway. You should probably check (don't want to take my word on it), but I'm quite certain everything is libre.

Moving on, the key point in the above is the additional -bios option. This allows you to replace whatever default BIOS emulator is used with one of the Libreboot emulators available by default, which are available at "/stable/20160902/rom/grub/" (no quotes, and replace the bit in angle brackets)- choose whichever of the "libreboot_r20160902_grub_qemu_"... options listed is for the computer you want to emulate (see below).

The computer you want to emulate, specified by the -M option, is the other important thing. There are two choices listed- q35 (use the q35 ROM image file) and pc (use the other one from the two choices in the listing above). I don't know exactly what the choice of machine entails, nor whether that option still exists- I can't find it in any docs.

Hope that helped!