Arthur Heymans
I'm Arthur Heymans. I've always been quite interested in how computers work, however, this interest only fully developed much later. While studying physics and philosophy at the university, I became very interested in the concept of free software via the "about GNU" page in my editor of choice, Emacs. The GNU/Linux OS is very usable as free software these days, however, firmware and some low-level drivers tend to present a different, much more closed story. This led me to discover coreboot, which is a project that offers an alternative to closed-source firmware/BIOS. Fast forward a few years and I'm a regular contributor to coreboot and have learned a great deal from incredible people who were willing to invest time in reviewing my patches. I secured a job at 9elements, which professionally involved me in multiple open-source firmware projects.
x86 coreboot with long mode: where are we at and where are we going
Unlike the traditional BIOS that operates in 32-bit mode, LinuxBios (now known as coreboot) switches to 32-bit mode almost immediately. It was previously considered progressive to write firmware in 32-bit protected mode using C. However, even though AMD released the AMD64 extension in 2003, introducing 64-bit or long mode, coreboot remained in 32-bit mode. This was adequate for coreboot's responsibility for limited hardware initialization. Nevertheless, it now shows signs of confinement, and adapting to long mode should be considered, especially as Intel plans to phase out 32-bit mode with X86S. This presentation will outline the key achievements in enabling long mode on coreboot, challenges encountered, and made design decisions. It will conclude with some metric analysis and a glimpse into future silicon plans.