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Yeah, I really want to write a hobbyist OS atop UEFI & amd64, but … the learning curve is daunting. BIOS is too simple, but UEFI is hyper-complex. There's pro

Yeah, I really want to write a hobbyist OS atop UEFI & amd64, but … the learning curve is daunting. BIOS is too simple, but UEFI is hyper-complex. There's probably a reason most hobbyist OSes seem to be using BIOS …

josteink 9y ago
> Yeah, I really want to write a hobbyist OS atop UEFI & amd64, but … the learning curve is daunting. BIOS is too simple, but UEFI is hyper-complex. That doesn't really seem very representative of reality. UEFI basically takes care of all the terrible legacy stuff for you, so you don't have to. You can just focus on the OS, built on a modern architecture. See my other comment regarding BIOS vs UEFI: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15517300 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15517300 If you also try to compare UEFI vs BIOS on a deeper technical level, UEFI also seems to come out in a favourable way: https://www.happyassassin.net/2014/01/25/uefi-boot-how-does-that-actually-work-then/ https://www.happyassassin.net/2014/01/25/uefi-boot-how-does-... The only "complex" part about it, is that you already know and have come to terms with all those terrible & complex things which booting a OS from legacy BIOS-mode entails, but UEFI while simplifying a million things is still different and something you haven't learned yet.
- eadmund 9y ago
  > That doesn't really seem very representative of reality … You can just focus on the OS, built on a modern architecture. But that means complexity. E.g. BIOS just loads the first 512 bytes from a volume into memory; UEFI requires FAT filesystems, with paths &c. BIOS routines can easily be called from assembly; I don't know if UEFI routines can, or if the EFI Development Toolkit is required (I could find out, of course — but that's part of the learning curve). I have no doubt that once I learn it all I'll prefer UEFI. But, as I said, the learning curve is daunting.

josteink 9y ago

> Yeah, I really want to write a hobbyist OS atop UEFI & amd64, but … the learning curve is daunting. BIOS is too simple, but UEFI is hyper-complex. That doesn't really seem very representative of reality. UEFI basically takes care of all the terrible legacy stuff for you, so you don't have to. You can just focus on the OS, built on a modern architecture. See my other comment regarding BIOS vs UEFI: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15517300 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15517300 If you also try to compare UEFI vs BIOS on a deeper technical level, UEFI also seems to come out in a favourable way: https://www.happyassassin.net/2014/01/25/uefi-boot-how-does-that-actually-work-then/ https://www.happyassassin.net/2014/01/25/uefi-boot-how-does-... The only "complex" part about it, is that you already know and have come to terms with all those terrible & complex things which booting a OS from legacy BIOS-mode entails, but UEFI while simplifying a million things is still different and something you haven't learned yet.

eadmund 9y ago
> That doesn't really seem very representative of reality … You can just focus on the OS, built on a modern architecture. But that means complexity. E.g. BIOS just loads the first 512 bytes from a volume into memory; UEFI requires FAT filesystems, with paths &c. BIOS routines can easily be called from assembly; I don't know if UEFI routines can, or if the EFI Development Toolkit is required (I could find out, of course — but that's part of the learning curve). I have no doubt that once I learn it all I'll prefer UEFI. But, as I said, the learning curve is daunting.