5 ms·

In my admittedly limited time using Linux (switched to it full-time in ~2001), the total amount of effort I've spent troubleshooting issues has probably been do

In my admittedly limited time using Linux (switched to it full-time in ~2001), the total amount of effort I've spent troubleshooting issues has probably been dominated by two categories: 1. Getting audio to behave. 2. Boot problems. (waves at LILO) I don't know enough details about how UEFI and BIOS and MBR and GRUB and all of this works -- which probably contributed to my difficulties. But the problems certainly didn't end when I left LILO behind. So it always makes me wonder: Have the people responsible for the bootloaders ever used a Mac? My goodness it could not be simpler. Hold the right key combo at boot time and you get a nice interface that shows you all the bootable devices you've got plugged in. USB, SATA, NVMe, whatever, it's there. And when you select one and boot, it actually works. Recognizing that we don't actually need a GUI for this, and the challenge is different because Apple gets to use firmware and only worries about one type of OS, what would it take to make a PC bootloader work just as nicely?

dralley 4y ago
> Apple gets to use firmware and only worries about one type of OS, And a very, very narrow set of potential hardware compared to the entire PC ecosystem.
ElectricalUnion 4y ago
> what would it take to make a PC bootloader work just as nicely? If we take Apple's bootloader as a base line: Drop GPU support, except for blessed models, from initial boot support. Remove RAM customization options. Can't change speed and timings. Can't support ECC. Might as well disallow customizing RAM alltogether and solder it to the board or in the SOC. Remove CPU customization options. Can't change speed, enable or disable supported features. Can't chage ACPI tables. Remove storage customization options. Can't change storage speed, protocol support. Can't even add or remove internal storage devices at all, if we go by the latest trend. Implement a bluetooth stack onto the bootloader firmware, because that's for sure safe and could never go wrong. Force OSes to write their pairing keys in the firmware storage. Implement a wifi stack onto the bootloader firmware, because that's for sure safe and could never go wrong. Force OSes to write their pairing keys in the firmware storage. Implement internet-based, network boot support from a centralized, blessed location. Because that's completly safe and could never go wrong.

dralley 4y ago

> Apple gets to use firmware and only worries about one type of OS, And a very, very narrow set of potential hardware compared to the entire PC ecosystem.

ElectricalUnion 4y ago

> what would it take to make a PC bootloader work just as nicely? If we take Apple's bootloader as a base line: Drop GPU support, except for blessed models, from initial boot support. Remove RAM customization options. Can't change speed and timings. Can't support ECC. Might as well disallow customizing RAM alltogether and solder it to the board or in the SOC. Remove CPU customization options. Can't change speed, enable or disable supported features. Can't chage ACPI tables. Remove storage customization options. Can't change storage speed, protocol support. Can't even add or remove internal storage devices at all, if we go by the latest trend. Implement a bluetooth stack onto the bootloader firmware, because that's for sure safe and could never go wrong. Force OSes to write their pairing keys in the firmware storage. Implement a wifi stack onto the bootloader firmware, because that's for sure safe and could never go wrong. Force OSes to write their pairing keys in the firmware storage. Implement internet-based, network boot support from a centralized, blessed location. Because that's completly safe and could never go wrong.