5 ms·

I wonder what kind of BIOS/EFI replacement there will be on RISC-V motherboards. A brand new ISA seems like a great time to throw out any legacy features and fo

by snazz 8y ago

I wonder what kind of BIOS/EFI replacement there will be on RISC-V motherboards. A brand new ISA seems like a great time to throw out any legacy features and focus on a future proofed low level firmware.

tyingq 8y ago
We want something like this. But I suspect "broad adoption" is more along the lines of Western Digital not paying ARM royalties for embedded SATA controllers (or similar). Edit: Intel could use it for their management processor just for the irony :)
- dejaime 8y ago
  I suppose that's true, it'll probably get adopted on those "embedded yet invisible" uses. Still, I believe that does bode well for more general adoption, once it starts replacing ARM on the OEM side of things, by having a positive effect on its hardware price.
wyldfire 8y ago
Sadly everything that's come since x86 has done bootstrapping much more device-specifically and it always comes with signed bootloaders. If you're lucky you can opt-out. RISC-V will likely be designed with the goal of eliminating royalties, not making extensible/portable bootloaders.
- chriswarbo 8y ago
  I was a fan of OpenFirmware, which AFAIK was royalty-free and cross-platform (with a layer of Forth abstracting between software and hardware)
  - zzo38computer 8y ago
    Another thing that it is useful with Forth is that it means that even if there is no operating system it is able to boot, still the computer will be usable.
- est31 8y ago
  I think Microsoft was actually a force for standardization here: they didn't want to make multiple versions of Windows for multiple IBM PC implementations. So everything is designed in a way that you can have one OS image that boots on a wide range of hardware. Now compare that to ARM :). Here basically every device/SoC family needs its own linux build.
  - pjmlp 8y ago
    Microsoft used to have PC specification guides. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PC_System_Design_Guide https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PC_System_Design_Guide
- nickik 8y ago
  Its absolutely a goal of RISC-V to make it friendly to good bootloaders and there are lots and lots of discussion going on how these interfaces should look. This stuff is still in flux but go into working groups for privilege architecture and security and you will see all these discussions. RISC-V was never and will never be designed with the goal of eliminating royalties.
ronsor 8y ago
UEFI/EFI is that "future proofed low level firmware" -- I think there's already a port of it to RISC-V processors
- nickik 8y ago
  UEFI is a pretty terrible firmware and a huge mess. HP ported it for RISC-V but they seem to have lost interest. The open source firmware people like are however doing a lot, coreboot, u-boot, linuxboot and so on. There are discussions ongoing about how to design the low level interfaces.
  - StillBored 8y ago
    I don't see how you can say a specification is a mess. Particularly since it (and openfirmware) tend to implement far more of what is required to boot a "generic" OS than any of the firmware projects you mention. Projects that are all mostly linux bootloaders. Further, there is an open source mostly complete UEFI (tianocore) implementation. Some people dislike tianocore for mostly religious reasons (it has 2 character tabs, and an odd build system), but those reasons actually have nothing to do with base UEFI. Finally, UEFI as the OS interface is actually being embraced by u-boot and coreboot as the standard OS loader. Thats because they have realized that the services provided by UEFI actually do solve many of the problem users of uboot/etc systems experience. For one, it standardizes the update process for the actual firmware, as well as providing services/controls for managing the OS boot process following update/etc. It also has interfaces for plug in cards (PCIe option roms) and many other features that turn out to be critical to building a generic computing device.
    - nickik 8y ago
      > I don't see how you can say a specification is a mess. A specification can absolutly be a mess. Over-complicated for what is needed 90% of the time and in the other cases its also not optimal. > Further, there is an open source mostly complete UEFI (tianocore) implementation. Tinocore is not really complete for what you actually need and most venders are so far down stream that the advantages of real open source don't apply. > Thats because they have realized that the services provided by UEFI actually do solve many of the problem users of uboot/etc systems experience. I understand that. But there is a reason why Facebook, Google and other providers move away from UEFI. > For one, it standardizes the update process for the actual firmware, as well as providing services/controls for managing the OS boot process following update/etc. It also has interfaces for plug in cards (PCIe option roms) and many other features that turn out to be critical to building a generic computing device. The way the update process is implemented is incredibly sub-optimal and I have heard people from Intel agree that it is so. The problem is that it creates and unnecessary parallel universe that is far more insecure, far harder to understand and with way worse tooling. Check out this talk by one of the people who wrote UEFI and he admits many of the issues: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1XDYORK2z_M https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1XDYORK2z_M Then check out this by one of the Linuxboot people going into many of the existing problems from his perspective: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZyZfS00LZ70 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZyZfS00LZ70
zik 8y ago
Most embedded systems which run linux use u-boot as their boot loader. There's no BIOS really, just a boot loader. https://www.denx.de/wiki/U-Boot https://www.denx.de/wiki/U-Boot
yellowapple 8y ago
I hope OpenFirmware makes a comeback here.
- 0x1DEACAFE 8y ago
  Where is the "LIKE" button when I need it? +1

by snazz 8y ago

tyingq 8y ago

We want something like this. But I suspect "broad adoption" is more along the lines of Western Digital not paying ARM royalties for embedded SATA controllers (or similar). Edit: Intel could use it for their management processor just for the irony :)

dejaime 8y ago
I suppose that's true, it'll probably get adopted on those "embedded yet invisible" uses. Still, I believe that does bode well for more general adoption, once it starts replacing ARM on the OEM side of things, by having a positive effect on its hardware price.

wyldfire 8y ago

Sadly everything that's come since x86 has done bootstrapping much more device-specifically and it always comes with signed bootloaders. If you're lucky you can opt-out. RISC-V will likely be designed with the goal of eliminating royalties, not making extensible/portable bootloaders.

chriswarbo 8y ago
I was a fan of OpenFirmware, which AFAIK was royalty-free and cross-platform (with a layer of Forth abstracting between software and hardware)
- zzo38computer 8y ago
  Another thing that it is useful with Forth is that it means that even if there is no operating system it is able to boot, still the computer will be usable.
est31 8y ago
I think Microsoft was actually a force for standardization here: they didn't want to make multiple versions of Windows for multiple IBM PC implementations. So everything is designed in a way that you can have one OS image that boots on a wide range of hardware. Now compare that to ARM :). Here basically every device/SoC family needs its own linux build.
- pjmlp 8y ago
  Microsoft used to have PC specification guides. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PC_System_Design_Guide https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PC_System_Design_Guide
nickik 8y ago
Its absolutely a goal of RISC-V to make it friendly to good bootloaders and there are lots and lots of discussion going on how these interfaces should look. This stuff is still in flux but go into working groups for privilege architecture and security and you will see all these discussions. RISC-V was never and will never be designed with the goal of eliminating royalties.

ronsor 8y ago

UEFI/EFI is that "future proofed low level firmware" -- I think there's already a port of it to RISC-V processors

nickik 8y ago
UEFI is a pretty terrible firmware and a huge mess. HP ported it for RISC-V but they seem to have lost interest. The open source firmware people like are however doing a lot, coreboot, u-boot, linuxboot and so on. There are discussions ongoing about how to design the low level interfaces.
- StillBored 8y ago
  I don't see how you can say a specification is a mess. Particularly since it (and openfirmware) tend to implement far more of what is required to boot a "generic" OS than any of the firmware projects you mention. Projects that are all mostly linux bootloaders. Further, there is an open source mostly complete UEFI (tianocore) implementation. Some people dislike tianocore for mostly religious reasons (it has 2 character tabs, and an odd build system), but those reasons actually have nothing to do with base UEFI. Finally, UEFI as the OS interface is actually being embraced by u-boot and coreboot as the standard OS loader. Thats because they have realized that the services provided by UEFI actually do solve many of the problem users of uboot/etc systems experience. For one, it standardizes the update process for the actual firmware, as well as providing services/controls for managing the OS boot process following update/etc. It also has interfaces for plug in cards (PCIe option roms) and many other features that turn out to be critical to building a generic computing device.
  - nickik 8y ago
    > I don't see how you can say a specification is a mess. A specification can absolutly be a mess. Over-complicated for what is needed 90% of the time and in the other cases its also not optimal. > Further, there is an open source mostly complete UEFI (tianocore) implementation. Tinocore is not really complete for what you actually need and most venders are so far down stream that the advantages of real open source don't apply. > Thats because they have realized that the services provided by UEFI actually do solve many of the problem users of uboot/etc systems experience. I understand that. But there is a reason why Facebook, Google and other providers move away from UEFI. > For one, it standardizes the update process for the actual firmware, as well as providing services/controls for managing the OS boot process following update/etc. It also has interfaces for plug in cards (PCIe option roms) and many other features that turn out to be critical to building a generic computing device. The way the update process is implemented is incredibly sub-optimal and I have heard people from Intel agree that it is so. The problem is that it creates and unnecessary parallel universe that is far more insecure, far harder to understand and with way worse tooling. Check out this talk by one of the people who wrote UEFI and he admits many of the issues: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1XDYORK2z_M https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1XDYORK2z_M Then check out this by one of the Linuxboot people going into many of the existing problems from his perspective: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZyZfS00LZ70 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZyZfS00LZ70

zik 8y ago

Most embedded systems which run linux use u-boot as their boot loader. There's no BIOS really, just a boot loader. https://www.denx.de/wiki/U-Boot https://www.denx.de/wiki/U-Boot

yellowapple 8y ago

I hope OpenFirmware makes a comeback here.

0x1DEACAFE 8y ago
Where is the "LIKE" button when I need it? +1