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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.
Support Limine
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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 v2.40)
git clone https://github.com/limine-bootloader/limine.git --branch=v2.40-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".
Note that the build system does not support building from a directory whose full path contains spaces.
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, git, 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).
The generated bootloader files are going to be in 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 bin/limine-install 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" TOOLCHAIN_OBJCOPY="objcopy"
Where ld 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-installattempt 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.