Zig EFI

A simple library for creating EFI applications/operating systems in Zig.

Installation

NOTE: Only Zig version 0.14.0-dev.2577+271452d22 is supported as of the latest commit. (Although you will not need zig to compile, as it uses docker by default).

1. In your project containing your build.zig file:

zig fetch --save git+https://codeberg.org/Land/zig-efi-lib

2. Copy these files into your project:

• Dockerfile
• Makefile
• build.zig template (Rename to build.zig)

3. Done!

Building an EFI Application

1. Install Docker
2. Run:

make docker name="name of OS"

Highlighted features

• Never have to call EFI functions manually
• Heap management
• Optional panic handler that enables partial debugging (depending on how far along the OS setup is)
• Graphics
  • Text rendering
  • 2D graphics (can make games)
• EFI Filesystem
  • Read-only filesystem
  • Files and directories
• Input/Output
  • Experimental mouse input
• Hardware RNG
  • Fallbacks to software RNG if hardware RNG fails

API Reference

Automatically generated API Reference for the project can be found at https://landstander27.github.io/zig-efi-lib. Note that Zig autodoc is in beta; the website may be broken or incomplete.

Examples (Ordered by least-most difficult)

To run these examples, excluding the last one, run make example example="dir" run, with dir being a directory in examples.

• Hello World: Quick "Hello World" example.
• Heap: Simple heap example.
• Panic: Showcases how to use the optional panic handler.
• Graphics: Text and 2D graphics.
• Advanced: Skeleton for an "advanced" project.
• Snake: A snake game. Showcases how to draw to screen with a framebuffer.
• AeroOS: Simple OS I created that originally gave me the idea for this project. Most of the code of this library is taken from here.

FAQ

• When building with docker, why are the error messages not "pretty"?:
  • Instead of running make docker, run make docker dockerflags="-it".