Releases

History of SeaBIOS releases. Please see download for information on obtaining these releases.

SeaBIOS 1.7.5

Available on 20140528. Major changes in this release:

• Support for obtaining SMBIOS tables directly from QEMU.
• XHCI USB controller fixes for real hardware (now tested on several boards)
• SeaVGABIOS improvements
  • New driver for "coreboot native vga" support
  • Improved detection of older x86emu versions with incorrect emulation.
• Several bug fixes and code cleanups

SeaBIOS 1.7.4

Available on 20131223. Major changes in this release:

• Support for obtaining ACPI tables directly from QEMU.
• Initial support for XHCI USB controllers (initially for QEMU only).
• Support for booting from "pvscsi" devices on QEMU.
• Enhanced floppy driver - improved support for real hardware.
• coreboot cbmem console support.
• Optional support for using the 9-segment instead of the e-segment for local variables.
• Improved internal timer code and accuracy.
• SeaVGABIOS improvements
  • Better support for legacy X.org releases with incomplete x86emu emulation.
  • Support for using an internal stack to reduce caller's stack usage.
  • Back port of new "bochs dispi" interface video modes.
• Several bug fixes and code cleanups
  • Source code separated out into additional hardware and firmware directories.
  • Update to latest version of Kconfig

SeaBIOS 1.7.3

Available on 20130707. Major changes in this release:

• Initial support for using SeaBIOS as a UEFI Compatibility Support Module (CSM)
• Support for detecting and using ACPI reboot ports.
• By default, all 16bit entry points now use an internal stack to reduce stack footprint.
• Floppy controller code has been rewritten to improve compatibility. Non-standard floppy sizes now work again with recent QEMU versions.
• Several bug fixes and code cleanups

SeaBIOS 1.7.2

Available on 20130118. Major changes in this release:

• Support for ICH9 host chipset ("q35") on emulators
• Support for booting from LSI MegaRAID SAS controllers
• Support for using the ACPI PM timer on emulators
• Improved Geode VGA BIOS support.
• Several bug fixes

SeaBIOS 1.7.1

Available on 20120831. Major changes in this release:

• Initial support for booting from USB attached scsi (USB UAS) drives
• USB EHCI 64bit controller support
• USB MSC multi-LUN device support
• Support for booting from LSI SCSI controllers on emulators
• Support for booting from AMD PCscsi controllers on emulators
• New PCI allocation code on emulators. Support 64bit PCI bars and mapping them above 4G.
• Support for non-linear APIC ids on emulators.
• Stack switching for 16bit real mode irq handlers to reduce stack footprint.
• Support for custom storage in the memory at 0xc0000-0xf0000. No longer reserve memory for custom storage in first 640k.
• Improved code generation for 16bit segment register loads
• Boot code will now (by default) reboot after 60 seconds if no boot device found
• CBFS and FWCFG "files" are now only scanned one time
• Several bug fixes

SeaBIOS 1.7.0

Available on 20120414. Major changes in this release:

• Many enhancements to VGA BIOS code - it should now be feature complete with LGPL vgabios.
• Support for virtio-scsi.
• Improved USB drive (usb-msc) support.
• Several USB controller bug fixes and improvements.
• Runtime ACPI AML PCI hotplug construction.
• Support for running on i386 and i486 CPUs.
• Enhancements to PCI init when running on emulators.
• Several bug fixes

SeaBIOS 1.6.3

Available on 20111004. Major changes in this release:

• Initial support for Xen
• PCI init (on emulators) uses a two-phase initialization
• Fixes for AHCI so it can work on real hardware. AHCI is now enabled by default.
• Bootsplash support for BMP files
• Several configuration options can now be configured at runtime via CBFS files (eg, "etc/boot-menu-wait")
• PCI device scan is cached during POST phase
• Several bug fixes

The SeaBIOS 1.6.3 release was an incremental feature release. The first release number (1) was incremented as the project was no longer in a beta stage, and the third release number (3) was also incremented to indicate the release was a regular feature release.

SeaBIOS 0.6.2

Available on 20110228. Major changes in this release:

• Setup code can relocate to high-memory to save space in c-f segments
• Build now configured via Kconfig
• Experimental support for AHCI controllers
• Support for run-time configuration of the boot order (via CBFS/fw_cfg "bootorder" file)
• Support T13 EDD3.0 spec
• Improved bounds checking on PCI memory allocation
• Several bug fixes

SeaBIOS 0.6.1

Available on 20100913. Major changes in this release:

• Support for virtio drives
• Add ACPI definitions for cpu hotplug support
• Support for a graphical bootsplash screen
• USB mouse support
• The PCI support for emulators is less dependent on i440 chipset
• New malloc implementation which improves memalign and free
• The build system no longer double links objects
• Several bug fixes

SeaBIOS 0.6.0

Available on 20100326. Major changes in this release:

• USB hub support
• USB drive booting support
• USB keyboard auto-repeat support
• USB EHCI controller support
• Several improvements to compatibility of PS2 port handlers for old code
• Support for qemu e820 interface
• Several bug fixes and code cleanups

SeaBIOS 0.5.1

Available on 20100108. Major changes in this release:

• Support for 32bit PCI BIOS calls
• 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".
• Support USB UHCI and OHCI controllers
• 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)
• Support for PCI bridges when iterating through PCI device list
• 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

SeaBIOS 0.3.0

Available on 20080817. Major changes in this release:

• Run boot code (int18/19) in 32bit mode
• Rewrite of PS2 port handling - new code is more compatible with real hardware
• Initial support for int155f VGA option rom calls
• Several bug fixes and code cleanups

SeaBIOS 0.2.3

Available on 20080702. Major changes in this release:

• Initial support for running on real hardware with coreboot
• Support parsing coreboot tables
• Support relocating bios tables from high memory when running under coreboot
• Dynamic e820 map generation
• Serial debug support
• New tools/checkstack.py tool
• Several bug fixes and code cleanups

SeaBIOS 0.2.2

Formerly known as "legacybios". Available on 20080501. Major changes in this release:

• Several bug fixes and code cleanups

SeaBIOS 0.2.1

Formerly known as "legacybios". Available on 20080406. Major changes in this release:

• Port of boot menu code from Bochs BIOS
• Several bug fixes and code cleanups

SeaBIOS 0.2.0

Formerly known as "legacybios". Available on 20080330. Major changes in this release:

• Completion of initial port of Bochs BIOS code to gcc.