ArcaOS 5.1 UEFI support - GOP?

[jailbird]

I have support so I was going to ask this in Mantis, but the ArcaNoae Wiki makes it sound like Mantis should only be used for bugs and not questions.

Since I'm not on the testing team, I'm curious if the upcoming 5.1 UEFI support includes the UEFI "GOP" (Graphics Output Protocol) support? I know there is some sort of NDA, so if the answer is "we/I can't say", then I understand. The "VGA services" part of https://www.arcanoae.com/uefi-support-in-arcaos-5-1-update-for-february-2022/ makes it sound like "yes", but I couldn't find any Arca Noae UEFI page anywhere that explicitly says GOP (or at least Google couldn't!).

[Roderick Klein]

Gop is supported yes.

Roderick

[jailbird]

Awesome, thanks!

[Rich Walsh]

I'm curious why UEFI GOP would be of any interest unless you plan to write or run a UEFI Boot Services app. Once you enter the runtime environment (i.e. the OS/2 kernel takes over), all that remains is the GOP-created framebuffer. And that is something you can't (or at least, shouldn't) touch because it's the basis of 5.1's VESA-emulation "video driver". Lacking any code to manipulate the video hardware itself, the driver relies on the bootloader to set the video resolution and mode while in Boot Services, then uses the pre-configured framebuffer for its operations.

[jailbird]

I'm curious why UEFI GOP would be of any interest unless you plan to write or run a UEFI Boot Services app. Once you enter the runtime environment (i.e. the OS/2 kernel takes over), all that remains is the GOP-created framebuffer. And that is something you can't (or at least, shouldn't) touch because it's the basis of 5.1's VESA-emulation "video driver". Lacking any code to manipulate the video hardware itself, the driver relies on the bootloader to set the video resolution and mode while in Boot Services, then uses the pre-configured framebuffer for its operations.

Mainly because the bhyve hypervisor in FreeBSD (and its derivatives) and also Joyent's SmartOS/SmartDC products use GOP for their VNC support for graphics support. Anything else is serial(-port) console only. I believe in FreeBSD -CURRENT they now have CSM VNC support using traditional VGA emulation, but I don't believe that's made it to real releases yet.

https://wiki.freebsd.org/bhyve/UEFI

[Lars]

I understand that bhyve is a hypervisor, a "host" so to say, for running a "guest" in a VM (much like Virtualbox ?).

So I understand that the "host" relies on GOP but why would the "guest" (ArcaOS in this case) need GOP for just that ?
Wouldn't you be able to run plain DOS as a "guest" (and surely, DOS knows nothing about UEFI or GOP) ?

Or is this necessary to support screen output during the ArcaOS bootup phase ?

[Jochen Schäfer]

Mostly likely the latter.
That's a common problem with Macpros, which have GPUs without a Mac specific firmware installed. Everything boots up, but the display only "lights up", when the drivers kick in. So there some efforts to provide UEFI boot managers with GOP support, such that you can select your boot partitions on startup.

[Roderick Klein]

Its already workung with go suppirt. Arcaos ships with something called an launcher.

Roderick

[Roderick Klein]

Rich explained it better. Anyway in Arcaos 5.1 beta the bass video handler dll bvhsvga.dll has been replaced by bvhefi.dll for uefi boit. The uefi loader provides an extremely minimal video bios. And vsvga.sys for dos sessiobs is replaced by vefi.sys.

All this info you can find in youtube presentations from alex taylor he did for warpstock europe.


Roderick

[jailbird]

All this info you can find in youtube presentations from alex taylor he did for warpstock europe.

Thanks, Roderick, I'll check it out. Sadly, if there were captions (auto-generated or otherwise) on the video, a Google search didn't pop it up when I was searching .

[Ibrahim Hakeem]

Hi Roderick,

This might fall under NDA, but can you comment on the stability of vefi.sys as opposed to vsvga.sys?

[Doug Bissett]

but can you comment on the stability of vefi.sys as opposed to vsvga.sys?

While doing UEFI testing, I have found that vefi.sys works remarkably well. It actually makes it possible to use DOS/winOS2, on a machine where it won't even start in normal BIOS (CSM) mode. That is, of course, because of the replacement for CSM, that Arca Noae has developed. It probably isn't perfect, but it is much better.

[Ibrahim Hakeem]

but can you comment on the stability of vefi.sys as opposed to vsvga.sys?

While doing UEFI testing, I have found that vefi.sys works remarkably well. It actually makes it possible to use DOS/winOS2, on a machine where it won't even start in normal BIOS (CSM) mode. That is, of course, because of the replacement for CSM, that Arca Noae has developed. It probably isn't perfect, but it is much better.

That's great to read! It seems we're well on the way to phasing out the use of DOSBOX as a stop-gap.  Thank you kindly Doug

[Roderick Klein]

All this info you can find in youtube presentations from alex taylor he did for warpstock europe.

Thanks, Roderick, I'll check it out. Sadly, if there were captions (auto-generated or otherwise) on the video, a Google search didn't pop it up when I was searching .

Try this

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=onY3uZw7m3Y

Roderick

[Doug Bissett]

That's great to read! It seems we're well on the way to phasing out the use of DOSBOX as a stop-gap.

Not entirely. Vefi.sys is only for UEFI machines, so machines that are not installed in UEFI mode cannot use it It is also possible, that something will work with DOSBOX, and not with vefi.sys support. DOS/winOS2 does have a couple of other restrictions, that DOSBOX doesn't have. When the time comes, you will need to try it, to see what happens.