http://events.ccc.de/congress/2008/Fahrplan/events/2970.en.html

coreboot: Beyond The Final Frontier

Open source BIOS replacement with a radical approach to boot.

The BIOS and it's successor EFI are considered by many to be the final frontier for open source software in commodity PCs. This talk describes the BIOS replacement coreboot (formerly LinuxBIOS) and the projects surrounding it.

The closed nature of traditional firmware is starting to cause concern even on the government level, as awareness for BIOS malware risks is increasing.

The presentation describes coreboot, supplementary tools such as buildrom, flashrom, superiotool and nvramtool, and some popular payloads that combine with coreboot to make up the firmware: FILO, EtherBoot, SeaBIOS, Memtest86, tint, Linux, coreinfo, bayou and libpayload featuring tinycurses, which turns simple applications into instant-on appliances. Finally there will be a demonstration of coreboot running on hardware.