'Doom' Game Ported To Run As a Coreboot BIOS Payload (phoronix.com) 17
"Yes, it's possible to get the game Doom running atop this system firmware," reports Phoronix.
Tom's Hardware explains: Originally known as LinuxBIOS, which provides a better clue to its utility value, Coreboot 4.17 supports new motherboards, delivers a new bootloader, supports AMD Platform Secure Boot (PSB), comes with a handful of fixes, and... a port of Doom.
Coreboot is a free and open-source BIOS implementation that supports numerous extensions known as Payloads. These Payloads add functionality to the minimal code that is the basis of Coreboot. Therefore, a great deal of customizability is available to Coreboot users to determine exactly what their BIOS ROMs contain via Payload choices.
To configure Coreboot for a usable setup, one might typically start by adding a bootloader, with a choice of eight available currently according to the official Wiki. Then there is support for various popular OSes, a handful of utilities provided as Payloads, and even some games. If your BIOS flash memory space is large enough, you could even shoehorn in a Linux distribution.
There's a few caveats. (There's no sound or "save game" feature, "and your system will hang on exiting the game.")
But their article still calls Doom "a great new choice if you are bored of the Grub Invaders (Space Invaders) and Tint (Tetris) clone Payloads, bringing 3D gaming to your BIOS."
Tom's Hardware explains: Originally known as LinuxBIOS, which provides a better clue to its utility value, Coreboot 4.17 supports new motherboards, delivers a new bootloader, supports AMD Platform Secure Boot (PSB), comes with a handful of fixes, and... a port of Doom.
Coreboot is a free and open-source BIOS implementation that supports numerous extensions known as Payloads. These Payloads add functionality to the minimal code that is the basis of Coreboot. Therefore, a great deal of customizability is available to Coreboot users to determine exactly what their BIOS ROMs contain via Payload choices.
To configure Coreboot for a usable setup, one might typically start by adding a bootloader, with a choice of eight available currently according to the official Wiki. Then there is support for various popular OSes, a handful of utilities provided as Payloads, and even some games. If your BIOS flash memory space is large enough, you could even shoehorn in a Linux distribution.
There's a few caveats. (There's no sound or "save game" feature, "and your system will hang on exiting the game.")
But their article still calls Doom "a great new choice if you are bored of the Grub Invaders (Space Invaders) and Tint (Tetris) clone Payloads, bringing 3D gaming to your BIOS."
Is it just me.... (Score:2)
Is it just me, or does it seem like some people have too much time on their hands?
Re: (Score:2)
It's just you.
Re: (Score:2)
The whole point of a hobby is to make sure you never have any spare time.
Re: (Score:2)
Perhaps people are so good at what they do that their 9-to-5 job is just a formality, and they enjoy creating brilliant things like these after hours.
Re:Is it just me.... (Score:4, Insightful)
Do you think instead they should be working harder? A job is not supposed to be the focus of your life, it is supposed to be the thing that gets you enough money to enjoy the non-job part of your life. If you enjoy planting flowers, do that; if you enjoy playing with code to do obscure but entertaining things, do that.
The whole "because you did something I judge as non-productive means you have too much time on your hands" is asinine.
Re: (Score:2)
Built-in Doomsday Consolation (Score:2)
If you screw up your OS so badly that it can't be saved, you can at least sit back and relax playing a game which relates very closely to your doomed situation.
It's still fun (Score:2)
https://youtu.be/2BSmpE7fCSE [youtu.be]
Community content can be incredible.
The capabilities of coreboot and tianocore... (Score:2)
Are getting better every day. I sincerely hope that, in the non to distant future:
1.) Coreboot + Tianocore achieve full parity with UEFI
2.) Some Mobo Manufacturer adopts Coreboot + TianoCore as their solution (lending them full credibility) and stop paying the Ami/phoenix/Insyde cost.
Spyware? (Score:2)
Your BIOS chip has such a large capacity, it could hold all sorts of things. Spyware. Doom. Phone-home remote rootkits... It doesn't take dozens of megabytes to hold system initialization code.
Re: Spyware? (Score:3)
Re: (Score:2)
LOL. Man you couldn't be more wrong. Your BIOS chip has such little capacity that currently on AMD x470 motherboards it doesn't even have sufficient space to hold the system initialization code of all AM4 CPUs on the market. The result is a CPU support list that not only list the minimum supported BIOS version for a chip, but also the maximum.
This problem was comical enough that AMD would *loan* you a compatible CPU so you could get to the BIOS and apply the appropriate update to support your desired CPU. M
Re: (Score:2)
Yeah, because AMD releases a dozen+ configuration processors for each generation and there's a ton of bloat to prevent users from configuring the hardware how they'd like.
VIA and Intel were able to build bioses that would handle three competing brands of processors all with slightly different architecture and wildly different clock and power configurations for socket7, they did this with 1MB chips.
Doom Probably Smaller Than UEFI (Score:2)