5 ms·

You still can't just ignore BIOS. It might be on the deathrow, but it's still got plenty of life in it. Hell, knowing Intel, x86 BIOS will be supported until x8

You still can't just ignore BIOS. It might be on the deathrow, but it's still got plenty of life in it. Hell, knowing Intel, x86 BIOS will be supported until x86 itself keels over. Is it okay that I fantasize about that?

userbinator 10y ago
Linus Torvalds agrees with me and you, (U)EFI is an overengineered mess that is complex enough to be an OS itself: http://yarchive.net/comp/linux/efi.html http://yarchive.net/comp/linux/efi.html
- qwertyuiop924 10y ago
  Huh. Well, if stories are to be believed, it's STILL better than BIOS.
  - ori_b 10y ago
    Bios is wonderful because it's limited; Nobody wants to try shoving more functionality into it. No system management, no drivers, nothing. The bios loads your kernel, and then you get out and do your own thing. And that's the advantage of it.
    - cfallin 10y ago
      > The bios loads your kernel Not even that! It loads the first 512-byte sector of your boot disk and jumps to it in 16-bit mode. Usually that bit of code loads in a few more sectors (using BIOS disk IO calls), enough to load a real bootloader's image (like GRUB), which subsequently understands your filesystem and loads the real kernel. It's kind of a hack but I completely agree, much better to leave it in the hands of the systems developer -- firmware that tries to do too much often just gets in the way.
    - jacquesm 10y ago
      It may also initialize some of your hardware by calling the firmware supplied with that hardware in ROM (for instance: video cards, network adapters and RAID controllers).
    - astrange 10y ago
      EFI drivers are great if you want to repair a machine without taking the boot disk out. http://appleinsider.com/articles/11/07/20/new_macbook_airs_mac_minis_feature_lion_internet_recovery_disc_less_repair http://appleinsider.com/articles/11/07/20/new_macbook_airs_m... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Target_Disk_Mode https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Target_Disk_Mode
      - userbinator 10y ago
        The ability to boot from the network has been there for traditional BIOS too: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Preboot_Execution_Environment https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Preboot_Execution_Environment http://wiki.osdev.org/PXE http://wiki.osdev.org/PXE
        voltagex_ 10y ago
        PXE is good (someone needs to sit down with me and a bottle of rum and work out why PXE behaves differently after a hard reboot in VirtualBox), but I've got to hand it to Apple, Target Disk Mode is nice. They also had some kind of multicast netboot-installer before most OSes.
    - sigcode 10y ago
      BIOS just runs whatever is in the first 512 byte sector. Unless it fits in 512 bytes this is not a "kernel" but is just instructions to jump to another address, where there is more small bootstrap code that loads another program, maybe a bootloader that loads another program, maybe a kernel. Those who multiboot Windows with some other OS that uses disklabels may notice that Windows expects to always be the first OS. Any other bootstrap code put into that first sector will be overwritten by a Windows install.
    - mjg59 10y ago
      > Bios is wonderful because it's limited; Nobody wants to try shoving more functionality into it. No system management, no drivers, nothing. Haha oh if only. I've probably worked around more UEFI bugs than any other single individual, and I've still had to deal with more non-UEFI BIOS bugs in my life. BIOS provides no kind of standardised interface to the OS, and so every vendor built their own and every vendor fucked up at some point. UEFI means there's much more shared code than before, and we're definitely benefiting from that.
- sigcode 10y ago
  Does anyone disagree that UEFI has the capability to be an OS itself? If it is only used as a "BIOS" then is it unreasonably adding the surface area for bugs and attacks? Is it much larger and more complex than legacy BIOS? Is this trade-off proportional to the benefits it provides: obviating need to for developers to understand backwards compatibility?
  - johncolanduoni 10y ago
    The point of UEFI is not to avoid the need for kernel developers to know how to get into 64-bit mode. If you can't manage to get a computer to do that pretty easily, kernel programming is not for you, and this is mostly limited to the bootloader anyways. As much as people like to rag on it, UEFI provides a lot of benefits: - UEFI graphics firmware improves compatibility, and makes things like PCI pass through of GPUs to virtual machines much easier/possible. - UEFI allows for much faster boot times by cutting out a lot of 16-bit mode/32-bit mode transitions that BIOSes generally used. - Every operating system doesn't need to fight over the master boot record of your drive, with UEFI they can live in relative peace. - Things that were simply impossible with a lot of BIOS implementations (e.g. Booting off > 2TB hard drives) are now possible. It's over-engineered, but so is ACPI (IMO To an even greater degree). Does anyone want to return to the old plug-and-play compatibility mess?
    - josteink 10y ago
      > It's over-engineered, but so is ACPI (IMO To an even greater degree). Does anyone want to return to the old plug-and-play compatibility mess? In my experience, those who like to rag on UEFI, for whatever problem they deem it to suffer from, are rarely interested in providing other options or solutions to the problems UEFI provenly solve.
      - qwertyuiop924 10y ago
        That's true of any piece of tech. The solution to C++'s problems didn't come from the people who avoided that language entirely, it came from Mozilla, who are up to their eyeballs in C++. People who hate Sexprs still haven't come up with a good replacement. They've got XML Many of the people behind that were Lispers. And anyways, I said a GOOD replacement. But yeah, the solutions to a problem with a system don't come from the people who hate its guts and won't touch it: It comes from people who use it, need its functionality, and need those warts fixed.
- dlitz 10y ago
  Yeah, Matthew Garrett also gave a pretty detailed talk about it Linux.conf.au 2012, which reaches a similar conclusion: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V2aq5M3Q76U https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V2aq5M3Q76U
- ckastner 10y ago
  (Off-topic) I was curious to see what other information that site might offer, and was amazed to find a curated list of hundreds of other useful discussions.
  - slrz 10y ago
    Yep, the Yarchive is awesome. Some of the older discussions on computer architecture and programming languages have real historical value and are hard to find anywhere else on the net. Great work Norman did there. Does anyone know why the references to the original threads (through Google Groups) don't work anymore? Did Google Groups stop carrying the content or can't they search by Message-ID anymore?
dbcurtis 10y ago
Ummm... you know Intel developed EFI in order to kill off BIOS, right? I remember being on some early phone calls about it over 15 years ago before the project was public. At the time, I thought it was a wonky idea, and I stand by that assessment.
- yuhong 10y ago
  I have two Twitter threads on this: https://twitter.com/yuhong2/status/751955059609526272 https://twitter.com/yuhong2/status/751955059609526272 https://twitter.com/getwired/status/752737513005912064 https://twitter.com/getwired/status/752737513005912064
- qwertyuiop924 10y ago
  Yeah, I know. But 286 was the 8086 killer. And 386 was the 286 killer. And x64 was the 386 killer. It doesn't stop my processor from reliving the history of x86 every time it boots.

userbinator 10y ago

Linus Torvalds agrees with me and you, (U)EFI is an overengineered mess that is complex enough to be an OS itself: http://yarchive.net/comp/linux/efi.html http://yarchive.net/comp/linux/efi.html

qwertyuiop924 10y ago
Huh. Well, if stories are to be believed, it's STILL better than BIOS.
- ori_b 10y ago
  Bios is wonderful because it's limited; Nobody wants to try shoving more functionality into it. No system management, no drivers, nothing. The bios loads your kernel, and then you get out and do your own thing. And that's the advantage of it.
  - cfallin 10y ago
    > The bios loads your kernel Not even that! It loads the first 512-byte sector of your boot disk and jumps to it in 16-bit mode. Usually that bit of code loads in a few more sectors (using BIOS disk IO calls), enough to load a real bootloader's image (like GRUB), which subsequently understands your filesystem and loads the real kernel. It's kind of a hack but I completely agree, much better to leave it in the hands of the systems developer -- firmware that tries to do too much often just gets in the way.
  - jacquesm 10y ago
    It may also initialize some of your hardware by calling the firmware supplied with that hardware in ROM (for instance: video cards, network adapters and RAID controllers).
  - astrange 10y ago
    EFI drivers are great if you want to repair a machine without taking the boot disk out. http://appleinsider.com/articles/11/07/20/new_macbook_airs_mac_minis_feature_lion_internet_recovery_disc_less_repair http://appleinsider.com/articles/11/07/20/new_macbook_airs_m... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Target_Disk_Mode https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Target_Disk_Mode
    - userbinator 10y ago
      The ability to boot from the network has been there for traditional BIOS too: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Preboot_Execution_Environment https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Preboot_Execution_Environment http://wiki.osdev.org/PXE http://wiki.osdev.org/PXE
      - voltagex_ 10y ago
        PXE is good (someone needs to sit down with me and a bottle of rum and work out why PXE behaves differently after a hard reboot in VirtualBox), but I've got to hand it to Apple, Target Disk Mode is nice. They also had some kind of multicast netboot-installer before most OSes.
  - sigcode 10y ago
    BIOS just runs whatever is in the first 512 byte sector. Unless it fits in 512 bytes this is not a "kernel" but is just instructions to jump to another address, where there is more small bootstrap code that loads another program, maybe a bootloader that loads another program, maybe a kernel. Those who multiboot Windows with some other OS that uses disklabels may notice that Windows expects to always be the first OS. Any other bootstrap code put into that first sector will be overwritten by a Windows install.
  - mjg59 10y ago
    > Bios is wonderful because it's limited; Nobody wants to try shoving more functionality into it. No system management, no drivers, nothing. Haha oh if only. I've probably worked around more UEFI bugs than any other single individual, and I've still had to deal with more non-UEFI BIOS bugs in my life. BIOS provides no kind of standardised interface to the OS, and so every vendor built their own and every vendor fucked up at some point. UEFI means there's much more shared code than before, and we're definitely benefiting from that.
sigcode 10y ago
Does anyone disagree that UEFI has the capability to be an OS itself? If it is only used as a "BIOS" then is it unreasonably adding the surface area for bugs and attacks? Is it much larger and more complex than legacy BIOS? Is this trade-off proportional to the benefits it provides: obviating need to for developers to understand backwards compatibility?
- johncolanduoni 10y ago
  The point of UEFI is not to avoid the need for kernel developers to know how to get into 64-bit mode. If you can't manage to get a computer to do that pretty easily, kernel programming is not for you, and this is mostly limited to the bootloader anyways. As much as people like to rag on it, UEFI provides a lot of benefits: - UEFI graphics firmware improves compatibility, and makes things like PCI pass through of GPUs to virtual machines much easier/possible. - UEFI allows for much faster boot times by cutting out a lot of 16-bit mode/32-bit mode transitions that BIOSes generally used. - Every operating system doesn't need to fight over the master boot record of your drive, with UEFI they can live in relative peace. - Things that were simply impossible with a lot of BIOS implementations (e.g. Booting off > 2TB hard drives) are now possible. It's over-engineered, but so is ACPI (IMO To an even greater degree). Does anyone want to return to the old plug-and-play compatibility mess?
  - josteink 10y ago
    > It's over-engineered, but so is ACPI (IMO To an even greater degree). Does anyone want to return to the old plug-and-play compatibility mess? In my experience, those who like to rag on UEFI, for whatever problem they deem it to suffer from, are rarely interested in providing other options or solutions to the problems UEFI provenly solve.
    - qwertyuiop924 10y ago
      That's true of any piece of tech. The solution to C++'s problems didn't come from the people who avoided that language entirely, it came from Mozilla, who are up to their eyeballs in C++. People who hate Sexprs still haven't come up with a good replacement. They've got XML Many of the people behind that were Lispers. And anyways, I said a GOOD replacement. But yeah, the solutions to a problem with a system don't come from the people who hate its guts and won't touch it: It comes from people who use it, need its functionality, and need those warts fixed.
dlitz 10y ago
Yeah, Matthew Garrett also gave a pretty detailed talk about it Linux.conf.au 2012, which reaches a similar conclusion: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V2aq5M3Q76U https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V2aq5M3Q76U
ckastner 10y ago
(Off-topic) I was curious to see what other information that site might offer, and was amazed to find a curated list of hundreds of other useful discussions.
- slrz 10y ago
  Yep, the Yarchive is awesome. Some of the older discussions on computer architecture and programming languages have real historical value and are hard to find anywhere else on the net. Great work Norman did there. Does anyone know why the references to the original threads (through Google Groups) don't work anymore? Did Google Groups stop carrying the content or can't they search by Message-ID anymore?

dbcurtis 10y ago

Ummm... you know Intel developed EFI in order to kill off BIOS, right? I remember being on some early phone calls about it over 15 years ago before the project was public. At the time, I thought it was a wonky idea, and I stand by that assessment.

yuhong 10y ago
I have two Twitter threads on this: https://twitter.com/yuhong2/status/751955059609526272 https://twitter.com/yuhong2/status/751955059609526272 https://twitter.com/getwired/status/752737513005912064 https://twitter.com/getwired/status/752737513005912064
qwertyuiop924 10y ago
Yeah, I know. But 286 was the 8086 killer. And 386 was the 286 killer. And x64 was the 386 killer. It doesn't stop my processor from reliving the history of x86 every time it boots.