[Arm-netbook] Good news about UEFI.

[Ken Phillis Jr]

While The previous discussion about UEFI [1] when dealing with
Microsoft's UEFI requirements on ARM[2] part did not help. There's
actually been a few interesting developments that should be taken into
consideration. [3] The linux foundation released a boot loader option
that will allow users to keep secure boot enabled, but still allow for
users to install linux on the effected computers. I believe that
Microsoft will probably work with the linux foundation to also
guarantee that the linux foundation shim will work on other devices
even if the secure boot is not disabled.

As for actual Implementation, I think that Tianocore [4] is mostly
ready to go and already has most of what is requried to support UEFI
version 2.3.1 ( including Signing tools and resources for dealing with
Secure Boot on linux ). This should be interesting because the Beagle
board [5] already has support, and the Samsung Origen[6] development
board is also supported. I also saw that there is two specific
examples of using Tianocore on Arm hardware. This is discussed on the
Tianocore porting page [7]... The Firmware level means that the uefi
code is found in the device's rom, and thus replaces U-boot or
whatever other boot loader is used. Then there is the chain load
method where you use U-boot to initialze the hardware, and then boot
tianocore. I figure that he chain load method would probably


[1] Wikipedia: Unified Extensible Firmware Interface
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unified_Extensible_Firmware_Interface

[2]
[Arm-netbook] Microsoft confirms UEFI fears, locks down ARM devices
http://lists.phcomp.co.uk/pipermail/arm-netbook/2012-January/001825.html

[3] work by the linux foundation ( Note: this is mainly about the UEFI
Secure boot boot loader)

Matthew Garrett's Blog: Linux Foundation Secure Boot support released
- what does it mean?
http://mjg59.dreamwidth.org/23113.html

Linux Foundation publication: Making UEFI Secure Boot Work With Open Platforms
http://www.linuxfoundation.org/publications/making-uefi-secure-boot-work-with-open-platforms

Linux Foundation UEFI Secure Boot System for Open Source
http://www.linuxfoundation.org/news-media/blogs/browse/2012/10/linux-foundation-uefi-secure-boot-system-open-source

[4] Tiano Core's website:
http://tianocore.sourceforge.net/

[5] Tianocore Wiki: Beagle Board
http://sourceforge.net/apps/mediawiki/tianocore/index.php?title=BeagleBoardPage

[6]Tianocore Wiki: Samsung Origen
http://sourceforge.net/apps/mediawiki/tianocore/index.php?title=SamsungPlatformPkg

[7] Tianocore Wiki: How to port Tianocore/UEFI to a new ARM Platform
http://sourceforge.net/apps/mediawiki/tianocore/index.php?title=ArmPlatformPkg