GOP (Graphics Output Protocol) Configuration Driver for BIOS

Abstract

BIOS stands for Basic Input Output System.On a very high level, it initializes the hardware like processor, chipset, peripherals etc. and then it gives control to the OS through boot manager. The BIOS must do its job before computer can load operating system and applications.Currently Intel has migrated from legacy BIOS to EFI BIOS which is based on EFI Speci cation. It has standard, modular environment and have many advantages over legacy BIOS.EFI is a standard or a speci cation which has di erent phases named as SEC (Security), PEI (Pre EFI Initialization), DXE (Driver Execution Environment) and BDS (Boot Device Selection). There is a provision of legacy BIOS in EFI BIOS code because not all the OSes are EFI compatible. In legacy BIOS, VBIOS is used for the display functionalities like: to initialize Intel graphics Hardware and boot to appropriate attached display devices by means of a data called as con gurable header whereas in EFI BIOS this has been replaced by GOP (Graphics Output Protocol) by its own other con gurable header.For di er- ent platforms, di erent con gurable headers are required. Con gurable Headers are blocks of data inside VBIOS. In EFI BIOS, GOP driver uses the con gurable header for display purpose.Con gurable header is a binary le which is currently con gured manually by Intel's Con gurable tool. In this document, one EFI based DXE driver is discussed which is targeted to con gure the Con gurable header for BIOS such that it can eliminate the need to con gure it manually for di erent platforms.