blog: Add GSoC'24 UEFI GOP, Part II post

This is the second post that outlines the progress on the UEFI GOP GSoC project, particulary from week four to six. Signed-off-by: procub3r <[email protected]>
unikraft · Jul 10, 2024 · d97d8ac · d97d8ac
1 parent bf23aad
commit d97d8ac
Show file tree

Hide file tree

Showing 6 changed files with 54 additions and 0 deletions.
diff --git a/content/blog/2024-07-10-gsoc-uefi-gop.mdx b/content/blog/2024-07-10-gsoc-uefi-gop.mdx
@@ -0,0 +1,54 @@
+---
+title: "GSoC'24: UEFI Graphics Output Protocol Support in Unikraft, Part II"
+description: |
+  This is the second post in a series of posts where I talk about my progress with the project.
+publishedDate: 2024-07-10
+image: /images/unikraft-gsoc24.png
+authors:
+- Sriprad Potukuchi
+tags:
+- gsoc
+- gsoc24
+- uefi
+- booting
+---
+
+## Project Overview
+
+The widely available and standardized [UEFI Graphics Output Protocol](https://uefi.org/specs/UEFI/2.10/12_Protocols_Console_Support.html#efi-graphics-output-protocol) (GOP) interface is an excellent alternative to VGA or serial port consoles for printing logs to the screen.
+
+This project aims to implement a UEFI GOP based console. For more information, check out [Part I](https://unikraft.org/blog/2024-06-18-gsoc-uefi-gop) of this series.
+
+## Progress
+- Using a placeholder [font](https://github.com/dhepper/font8x8), it is now possible to print null-terminated strings to the screens
+  <Image
+        src="/images/uefi-gop-first-text-render.png"
+  />
+
+- It is also possible to scale the font in both the axes independently
+    - No scaling
+      <Image
+            src="/images/uefi-gop-scaled-text-1.png"
+      />
+    - Scaled Y-axis
+      <Image
+            src="/images/uefi-gop-scaled-text-2.png"
+      />
+
+- I've also implemented scrolling. When all the lines are filled and a new log needs to be printed, the current logs on the screen are scrolled up (using `memcpy`)
+  <Image
+        src="/images/uefi-gop-before-scrolling.png"
+  />
+  <Image
+        src="/images/uefi-gop-after-scrolling.png"
+  />
+
+  Right now, scrolling moves all the framebuffer data in place. Reads and writes in framebuffer memory are slower because the video adapter driver actually syncs the framebuffer with the screen. This needs to be optimized!
+
+## Next Steps
+- Finalize a font!
+- Optimize scrolling (by maintaining an additional buffer(?))
+- Look into [this PR](https://github.com/unikraft/unikraft/pull/1464), which adds a generic console interface.
+
+## Acknowledgement
+I would like to thank all the great Unikraft folk for being a great community!
diff --git a/public/images/uefi-gop-after-scrolling.png b/public/images/uefi-gop-after-scrolling.png
diff --git a/public/images/uefi-gop-before-scrolling.png b/public/images/uefi-gop-before-scrolling.png
diff --git a/public/images/uefi-gop-first-text-render.png b/public/images/uefi-gop-first-text-render.png
diff --git a/public/images/uefi-gop-scaled-text-1.png b/public/images/uefi-gop-scaled-text-1.png
diff --git a/public/images/uefi-gop-scaled-text-2.png b/public/images/uefi-gop-scaled-text-2.png