Limine

What is Limine?

Limine is a modern, advanced x86/x86_64 BIOS/UEFI multiprotocol bootloader used as the reference implementation for the stivale protocols.

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Limine's boot menu

Photo by Chris Kane from Pexels

Supported boot protocols

• stivale and stivale2 (Limine's native boot protocols, see their specifications for details)
• Linux
• Multiboot 1
• Multiboot 2
• Chainloading

Supported filesystems

• ext2/3/4
• echfs
• FAT12/16/32
• ISO9660 (CDs/DVDs)

Supported partitioning schemes

• MBR
• GPT
• Unpartitioned media

Binary releases

For convenience, for point releases, binaries are distributed. These binaries are shipped in the -binary branches and tags of this repository (see branches and tags).

For example, to clone the latest binary release of the v2.x branch one can do

git clone https://github.com/limine-bootloader/limine.git --branch=v2.0-branch-binary --depth=1

or, to clone a specific binary point release (for example v2.65)

git clone https://github.com/limine-bootloader/limine.git --branch=v2.65-binary --depth=1

Additionally, the absolute latest Limine binary release can be obtained by fetching the latest-binary branch:

git clone https://github.com/limine-bootloader/limine.git --branch=latest-binary --depth=1

limine-install binaries are provided for Linux and Windows.

In case one wants to rebuild limine-install, simply use make in the binary release.

Building the bootloader

These steps are not necessary if cloning a binary release. If so, skip to "Installing Limine binaries".

Building the toolchain

This step can take a long time, but it will ensure that the toolchain will work with Limine. If on an x86_64 host, with GCC or Clang installed, you can skip to the next paragraph in order to use the system's toolchain instead.

The toolchain's build process depends on the following packages: GNU make, curl, gzip, bzip2, gcc/clang, g++/clang++.

Building the toolchain can be accomplished by running:

make toolchain    # (or gmake where applicable)

Building Limine

In order to build Limine, the following packages have to be installed: GNU make, nasm, mtools (optional, necessary to build limine-eltorito-efi.bin). Furthermore, either the toolchain must have been built in the previous paragraph, or gcc or llvm/clang must also be installed. GNU binutils is necessary in order to build the UEFI ports of Limine. A full LLVM toolchain without GNU binutils can be used to build just the BIOS port instead.

Both the UEFI and BIOS ports of the bootloader can be built, using GCC/GNU binutils (which includes the shipped toolchain), with:

make    # (or gmake where applicable)

It is possible to pass make additional flags, most relevantly, TOOLCHAIN=, which allows one to specify an alternative toolchain for the build system to use (the default is limine, resulting in program names like limine-gcc, falling back to no-prefix, or host, toolchain), and BUILDDIR=, which specifies an alternative build directory (for example, out of tree - the default is ./build).

The generated bootloader files are going to be in $BUILDDIR/bin (by default that is ./build/bin).

Using clang/LLVM

In order to build the BIOS port fully using clang/LLVM, run make as such:

# (or gmake where applicable)
make limine-bios CC="clang" TOOLCHAIN="llvm" TOOLCHAIN_CC="clang" TOOLCHAIN_LD="ld.lld"

And in order to build the UEFI port using clang/LLVM + GNU binutils, run make as such:

# (or gmake where applicable)
make limine-uefi TOOLCHAIN="llvm" TOOLCHAIN_CC="clang" TOOLCHAIN_LD="ld.bfd" TOOLCHAIN_OBJCOPY="objcopy"

Where ld.bfd and objcopy refer to GNU binutils versions of them. Specify their full path if necessary.

Installing Limine binaries

This step is optional as the bootloader binaries can be used from the bin or release directory just fine. This step will only install them to a share and bin directories in the specified PREFIX (default is /usr/local).

Use make install to install the Limine binaries, optionally specifying a different prefix with make install PREFIX=/myprefix.

How to use

UEFI

The BOOTX64.EFI file is a vaild EFI application that can be simply copied to the /EFI/BOOT directory of a FAT formatted EFI system partition. This file can be installed there and coexist with a BIOS installation of Limine (see below) so that the disk will be bootable on both BIOS and UEFI systems.

The boot device must to contain the limine.cfg file in either the root or the boot directory of one of the partitions, formatted with a supported file system (the ESP partition is recommended).

BIOS/MBR

In order to install Limine on a MBR device (which can just be a raw image file), run limine-install as such:

limine-install <path to device/image>

The boot device must to contain the limine.sys and limine.cfg files in either the root or the boot directory of one of the partitions, formatted with a supported file system.

BIOS/GPT

If using a GPT formatted device, there are 2 options one can follow for installation:

• Specifying a dedicated stage 2 partition.
• Letting limine-install attempt to embed stage 2 within GPT structures.

In case one wants to specify a stage 2 partition, create a partition on the GPT device of at least 32KiB in size, and pass the 1-based number of the partition to limine-install as a second argument; such as:

limine-install <path to device/image> <1-based stage 2 partition number>

In case one wants to let limine-install embed stage 2 within GPT's structures, simply omit the partition number, and invoke limine-install the same as one would do for an MBR partitioned device.

The boot device must to contain the limine.sys and limine.cfg files in either the root or the boot directory of one of the partitions, formatted with a supported file system.

BIOS/UEFI hybrid ISO creation

In order to create a hybrid ISO with Limine, place the limine-eltorito-efi.bin, limine-cd.bin, limine.sys, and limine.cfg files into a directory which will serve as the root of the created ISO. (limine.sys and limine.cfg must either be in the root or inside a boot subdirectory; limine-eltorito-efi.bin and limine-cd.bin can reside anywhere).

Place any other file you want to be on the final ISO in said directory, then run:

xorriso -as mkisofs -b <relative path of limine-cd.bin> \
        -no-emul-boot -boot-load-size 4 -boot-info-table \
        --efi-boot <relative path of limine-eltorito-efi.bin> \
        -efi-boot-part --efi-boot-image --protective-msdos-label \
        <root directory> -o image.iso

Note: xorriso is required.

And do not forget to also run limine-install on the generated image:

limine-install image.iso

<relative path of limine-cd.bin> is the relative path of limine-cd.bin inside the root directory. For example, if it was copied in <root directory>/boot/limine-cd.bin, it would be boot/limine-cd.bin.

<relative path of limine-eltorito-efi.bin> is the relative path of limine-eltorito-efi.bin inside the root directory. For example, if it was copied in <root directory>/boot/limine-eltorito-efi.bin, it would be boot/limine-eltorito-efi.bin.

BIOS/PXE boot

The limine-pxe.bin binary is a valid PXE boot image. In order to boot Limine from PXE it is necessary to setup a DHCP server with support for PXE booting. This can either be accomplished using a single DHCP server or your existing DHCP server and a proxy DHCP server such as dnsmasq.

limine.cfg and limine.sys are expected to be on the server used for boot.

Configuration

The limine.cfg file contains Limine's configuration.

An example limine.cfg file can be found in test/limine.cfg.

More info on the format of limine.cfg can be found in CONFIG.md.

Acknowledgments

Limine uses a stripped-down version of tinf.

Discord server

We have a Discord server if you need support, info, or you just want to hang out with us.