The firmware attribute of the <os> element in a libvirt domain definition specifies the type of firmware used to boot the virtual machine. The valid values for this attribute are efi and bios, which correspond to the Extensible Firmware Interface (EFI) and the Basic Input/Output System (BIOS) respectively. EFI is a newer standard that supports more features and security than BIOS, such as Secure Boot and faster boot times. BIOS is an older standard that is widely compatible and supported by most hypervisors and operating systems. The other values, scsi, virtio, and pcie, are not related to firmware, but to different types of devices or drivers that can be used in a virtual machine. References: 1 (search for firmware enum)