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I'm also wondering how the BIOS/UEFI equivalent on these machines works--I really hate how the Raspberry Pi does it (boot partition on SD card contains all data

by snazz 7y ago

I'm also wondering how the BIOS/UEFI equivalent on these machines works--I really hate how the Raspberry Pi does it (boot partition on SD card contains all data).

yjftsjthsd-h 7y ago
This board appears to have some flash onboard, so it's at least better than booting from SD card.
- linux4kix 7y ago
  The COM Express 7 module, has SPI-NOR for booting, a second SPI for UEFI secure variable storage, and eMMC for an embedded or recovery OS. Other than that you can boot your distro from eMMC, USB, Sata, or NVME.
mikedelfino 7y ago
Could you please elaborate on how Raspberry Pi's approach is an issue?
- zamadatix 7y ago
  Between the official boot firmware not being UEFI compatible and not being onboard it means you have to create a custom installation image and apply it to the disk rather than grabbing a generic installer and going. Also you need to do this for each bootable media you wish to create rather than once (and update each).
  - monocasa 7y ago
    Philosophically, I actually like the RPi approach (ie. a simple image with device tree) a lot more than ACPI/UEFI. ACPI involves a whole super privileged virtual machine with byte code from god knows where, whereas device tree gives more or less complete control over to the kernel image (sure PSCI is a thing, but that's a lot more defined WRT boundaries to me than ACPI). Basically an ACPI system is a lot easier to bootstrap because you don't need to support all of the little subcomponents of the board explicitly, but once you supprt devoce tree, you support the board in a much more complete and meaningful way, and it's truly your kernel running the show.
monocasa 7y ago
The Minoca guys wrote a UEFI loader for RPi FWIW.
drewg123 7y ago
At work we just got an aarch64 box from a vendor that has a very x86-like UEFI setup. Right down to the "BIOS" setup screens. It was very familiar seeming, but I'd rather have something like coreboot.
- p_l 7y ago
  Coreboot only handles low-level initialization, it will still need a higher level payload unless you're going to hardcode your kernel to the board for every update. Now, coreboot+tianocore uefi for somewhat open firmware...
p_l 7y ago
Apparently they are going for SBSA, which means it will have proper UEFI implementation, including possibly ACPI, so you will have normal UEFI experience.

by snazz 7y ago

I'm also wondering how the BIOS/UEFI equivalent on these machines works--I really hate how the Raspberry Pi does it (boot partition on SD card contains all data).

yjftsjthsd-h 7y ago

This board appears to have some flash onboard, so it's at least better than booting from SD card.

linux4kix 7y ago
The COM Express 7 module, has SPI-NOR for booting, a second SPI for UEFI secure variable storage, and eMMC for an embedded or recovery OS. Other than that you can boot your distro from eMMC, USB, Sata, or NVME.

mikedelfino 7y ago

Could you please elaborate on how Raspberry Pi's approach is an issue?

zamadatix 7y ago
Between the official boot firmware not being UEFI compatible and not being onboard it means you have to create a custom installation image and apply it to the disk rather than grabbing a generic installer and going. Also you need to do this for each bootable media you wish to create rather than once (and update each).
- monocasa 7y ago
  Philosophically, I actually like the RPi approach (ie. a simple image with device tree) a lot more than ACPI/UEFI. ACPI involves a whole super privileged virtual machine with byte code from god knows where, whereas device tree gives more or less complete control over to the kernel image (sure PSCI is a thing, but that's a lot more defined WRT boundaries to me than ACPI). Basically an ACPI system is a lot easier to bootstrap because you don't need to support all of the little subcomponents of the board explicitly, but once you supprt devoce tree, you support the board in a much more complete and meaningful way, and it's truly your kernel running the show.

monocasa 7y ago

The Minoca guys wrote a UEFI loader for RPi FWIW.

drewg123 7y ago

At work we just got an aarch64 box from a vendor that has a very x86-like UEFI setup. Right down to the "BIOS" setup screens. It was very familiar seeming, but I'd rather have something like coreboot.

p_l 7y ago
Coreboot only handles low-level initialization, it will still need a higher level payload unless you're going to hardcode your kernel to the board for every update. Now, coreboot+tianocore uefi for somewhat open firmware...

p_l 7y ago

Apparently they are going for SBSA, which means it will have proper UEFI implementation, including possibly ACPI, so you will have normal UEFI experience.