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Re: [Xen-devel] [PATCH 2 of 3] Enable UEFI BIOS(OVMF) support in Xen-unstable HVM



On Tue, Aug 9, 2011 at 07:56, Ian Campbell <Ian.Campbell@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> On Tue, 2011-08-09 at 15:47 +0100, Keir Fraser wrote:
>> On 09/08/2011 15:39, "Ian Campbell" <Ian.Campbell@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
>>
>> >>> +    { "ovmf-ia32", &ovmf32_config, },
>> >>> +    { "ovmf-x64", &ovmf64_config, },
>> >>
>> >>
>> >>         I suppose these (asymmetric) names are OVMF-isms?
>> >> Yes, these two are the names of OVMF BIOS in platform IA32 and X64.
>> >
>> > Ick, but oh well...
>> >
>> > Is there any reason to prefer one to the other? How do I choose which
>> > one I want? Can it be autodetected?
>>
>> I suspect ovmf-x64 is a superset of the capabilities of ovmf-ia32 (e.g.,
>> ability to boot UEFI-bootable 64-bit OSes?). If so, we should only support
>> one config option -- "ovmf" -- and have hvmloader auto-load the appropriate
>> OVMF build, based on CPUID.long_mode.
>
> Yes, that's the sort of thing I was getting at.

The IA32 firmware is used for IA32 UEFI operating systems, and the X64
firmware is used for X64 operating systems.

X64 is somewhat more commonly used on modern systems.

There could be an auto-detect mode for the default of IA32 or X64
based on the installed CPU, but there might still be a case where
someone would prefer to run OVMF IA32 on an X64 processor.

-Jordan

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