Serial Bootloader

Allows booting an operating system from the serial port.

Introduction

Serial Bootloader (serboot) is a bootloader for x86 computers. It can be installed in the bootsector of a floppy disk, hard drive, flash drive, CD-R, etc. Unlike a regular bootsector, serboot does not boot an operating system installed on the boot medium, instead it receives a kernel over the serial port, loads it into memory, then executes it. This makes serboot perfect for OSDev. Instead of having to go through the time consuming process of writing a disk image to a USB drive, then unplugging the USB drive and plugging it into the target computer, then powering up said computer, finding an issue, unplugging the USB, plugging the USB back into the development computer, etc. you can just write serboot to the bootsector of a disk, boot from that disk, and send the kernel over a serial cable. No repeated removal and insertion of USB drives necessary!

Usage

• Step 1: Write serboot to USB flash drive.
  • Linux: dd if=serboot.bin of=/dev/sdX
• Step 2: Connect a serial cable between the target and development computers.
• Step 3: Plug USB flash drive into target computer.
• Step 4: Boot from the USB flash drive.
• Step 5: Set the serial port to 115200 8-N-1.
• Step 6: Send the kernel using send.
  • Linux: ./send myos.bin /dev/ttyS0 100000

Downloads

Timeline

• (10/19/20) Project Completion