Where can I get OVMF?

[nexos]

Hello,
I am trying to download the OVMF firmware for QEMU, but I can't find a download link for it. Anyone have a link for it?
Thanks,
nexos

[PeterX]

Linux normally has it. So you can install it with the folllowing command:

For Manjaro/Arch:

Code: Select all

sudo pacman -S ovmf

For Debian/Ubuntu/Mint:

Code: Select all

sudo apt install ovmf

Otherwise you have to build it from source. In that case follow the instructions given on tianocore.org

No matter how you retrieved OVMF, you have to search the file hierarchy for "OVMF.fd".

EDIT: A tip I got from one of OVMF's developers: Run it in Qemu with the -pflash option, not the -bios option.

[BenLunt]

I got it from https://www.kraxel.org/repos/jenkins/edk2/, I then used 7zFM (7-Zip) for Windows to extract the files needed.

EDIT: A tip I got from one of OVMF's developers: Run it in Qemu with the -pflash option, not the -bios option.

Good point.

Here is how I do it for 64-bit:

Code: Select all

-drive if=pflash,format=raw,unit=0,readonly,file=OVMF-pure-efi.fd
-drive if=pflash,format=raw,unit=1,file=OVMF_VARS-pure-efi.fd

It is the same for 32-bit except you use the 32-bit files instead.

Ben

[austinejinks11]

Linux normally has it. So you can install it with the folllowing command:

For Manjaro/Arch:

Code: Select all

sudo pacman -S ovmf

For Debian/Ubuntu/Mint:

Code: Select all

sudo apt install ovmf

Otherwise you have to build it from source. In that case follow the instructions given on tianocore.org

No matter how you retrieved OVMF, you have to search the file hierarchy for "OVMF.fd".

EDIT: A tip I got from one of OVMF's developers: Run it in Qemu with the -pflash option, not the -bios option.

how do I use the ovmf package after installing it.

[Octocontrabass]

Tell QEMU to load OVMF as the firmware, like this. Make sure you use a copy of the VARS file, not the original! You can reuse that copy each time you boot QEMU with the same configuration.

The exact path to the OVMF files depends on the package you installed, but they're probably somewhere under /usr/share (for example, Ubuntu 24.04 has /usr/share/OVMF/OVMF_CODE_4M.fd and /usr/share/OVMF/OVMF_VARS_4M.fd).