05 March 2013, 17:45

FreeBSD to get UEFI support

FreeBSD logo The FreeBSD Foundation has awarded a grant to Benno Rice to complete the implementation of UEFI support for FreeBSD. UEFI (Unified Extensible Firmware Interface) is the boot environment which includes, as an option, the controversial Secure Boot option which Microsoft has mandated for Windows 8 booting. But, the FreeBSD grant does not focus on those functions. Instead, Rice has been concentrating on making a new version of the loader, modifying the FreeBSD kernel to support startup in a UEFI environment and being able to create install media for "pure UEFI systems".

According to Rice, "UEFI support is critical for FreeBSD's future on the amd64 platform and I'm really pleased to be able to ensure that FreeBSD gains support for it". The Foundation expects the work to be completed in March 2013. Details of the work already done by Rice and what is still to be done is on the FreeBSD wiki's UEFI page. Rice is also working on Secure Boot support for FreeBSD, but that project is still in its planning stages.

Another project which has recently been funded by the FreeBSD Foundation is one to add transparent superpages for ARM to FreeBSD.

(djwm)

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