Releases

From SeaBIOS
Revision as of 07:14, 9 January 2010 by Koconnor (talk | contribs) (Add 0.4.0 features)
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History of SeaBIOS releases. Please see Download for information on obtaining these releases.

SeaBIOS 0.5.1

Available on 20100108. Major changes in this release:

  • Support for 32bit PCI BIOS
  • Support for int1589 calls
  • MPTable fixes for OpenBSD
  • ATA DMA and bus-mastering support
  • Several bug fixes and code cleanups

SeaBIOS 0.5.0

Available on 20091218. Major changes in this release:

  • Several enhancements ported from the Bochs BIOS derived code in qemu and kvm
  • Support for parallel hardware initialization to reduce bootup times
  • Enable PCI option rom support by default (Bochs users must now enable CONFIG_OPTIONROMS_DEPLOYED in src/config.h). Support added for extracting option roms from qemu "fw_cfg".
  • Initial support for USB keyboards
  • SeaBIOS can now be greater than 64K
  • Support for permanent low memory allocations
  • APIC "local interrupts" now enabled in SeaBIOS (on emulators)
  • Several bug fixes and code cleanups

SeaBIOS 0.4.2

Available on 20090909. Major changes in this release:

  • Implement Post Memory Manager (PMM) support. Use equivalent "malloc" functions for internal allocations as well.
  • Refactor disk "block" interface for greater expandability
  • Support CBFS based floppy images
  • Allow boot menu to select either floppy to boot from
  • Increase ebda size to store a CDROM harddrive/floppy emulation buffer
  • Support systems with multiple vga cards (only the card with the legacy IO ranges mapped will have its option rom executed)
  • Make option rom memory be writable during option rom execution (on emulators)
  • Compile version number into code and report on each boot
  • Several bug fixes and code cleanups

SeaBIOS 0.4.1

Available on 20090714. Major changes in this release:

  • Support older versions of gcc that predate "-fwhole-program" (eg, v3.x)
  • Add initial port of "LGPL vga bios" code into tree in "vgasrc/" directory
  • Handle ATA drives still "spinning up" during SeaBIOS drive detect
  • Add support for option rom Boot Connection Vectors (BCV)
  • Enhance boot menu to support booting from any drive or any cdrom
  • Support flash based Coreboot File System (CBFS)
  • Support booting from a CBFS "payload"
  • Support coreboot table forwarder
  • Support compile time definitions for multiple root PCI buses
  • New tools/readserial.py tool
  • Several bug fixes and code cleanups

SeaBIOS 0.4.0

Available on 20090206. Major changes in this release:

  • Add Bios Boot Specification (BBS) calls; add PnP call stubs
  • Support option roms stored in PCI rom BAR
  • Support rebooting on ctrl+alt+delete key press
  • Scan PCI devices for ATA adapters (don't assume legacy ISA ATA ports are valid)
  • Attempt to automatically determine gcc capabilities/bugs during build
  • Add script to layout 16bit sections at fixed offsets and in compacted space
  • Introduce timestamp counter based delays
  • Support POST calls that are really a resume
  • Use new stack in EBDA for int13 disk calls to reduce stack usage
  • Support the EBDA being relocated by option roms
  • Move many variables from EBDA to global variables (stored in f-segment)
  • Initial port of several KVM specific features from their Bochs BIOS derived code
  • Access BDA using segment 0x40 and IVT using segment 0x00 (which could be important for 16bit protected mode callers)
  • Several bug fixes and code cleanups