The end of the BIOS? What do you think? - Page 3

qwertylesh · 18th May 2009, 1:05 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by proffesso

(anyone rememeber the movie hackers, with the flames when he turned on his laptop? ;p)

No, But i remember them all riding around on skateboards and Glass server citys in the gibson computer

rofl, i hate that movie, but its soooo funny at the same time

ayles · 18th May 2009, 1:13 PM

take that back dude, that movie taught me everything I know.

"33mhz processor"

Camotec · 18th May 2009, 1:32 PM

EFI is the next step and it is a lot faster and it works which mean we dont have to leave hardware negotiation up to Microsoft... about bloody time people looked at this seriously.

qwertylesh · 18th May 2009, 1:34 PM

Well some of the existing PC motherboards with EFI arent all that crash hot, its just giving the manufactures a chance to load more shit like BIOS games and whatever, sometimes simple is better (imo)

Camotec · 18th May 2009, 1:35 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by qwertylesh

Well some of the existing PC motherboards with EFI arent all that crash hot, its just giving the manufactures a chance to load more shit like BIOS games and whatever, sometimes simple is better (imo)

Lol thats bound to happen with early adoption of a new tech. gimmicky crap. But when companies get over that and open their eyes to the possibilities it will be a good day.

EFI needs to be an accepted step forward then we will see great things

dave_dave_dave · 18th May 2009, 1:39 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by jaames_2nv

What is a bios

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BIOS

loophole · 18th May 2009, 10:21 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by qwertylesh

gah, is that that click bios with the dodgy mini-games which have pictures of WWII in it?

Yep, that's the one

Quote:

Originally Posted by qwertylesh

also the original like references to the best we have atm is a blocky post screen, well last time i fired up a P5Q board of any sort I was given a nasty high res colourful screen with a cursor to choose the expressgate junk if i wanted to. Did the article completely overlook this or are referring to a different low res screen?

I think the Click BIOS first came out at about the same time as ExpressGate. But while ExpressGate gave the user a nice instant-on Linux distro (being a modified version of DeviceVM's Splashtop living on 512MB of flash embedded on the motherboard), it's still bootstrapped by the legacy BIOS; while MSI gave you the option of replacing the legacy BIOS with a UEFI compliant firmware (and consequently had to use a larger 32Mbit SPI flash ROM to store the firmware). That's probably why the article doesn't compare the two.

loophole · 18th May 2009, 10:42 PM

I have to admit though, I'm pretty interested in coreboot, but it will take them a while to reach maturity for consumer grade boards...

qwertylesh · 18th May 2009, 10:44 PM

ahh, it had me a bit stumped why it was not mentioned.
I don't really see the need for UFEI. Thanks for the explanation loophole

Gah im a linux nub.

loophole · 19th May 2009, 11:32 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by qwertylesh

ahh, it had me a bit stumped why it was not mentioned.
I don't really see the need for UFEI. Thanks for the explanation loophole

Gah im a linux nub.

Glad to help.

Honestly, I'm a bit on the fence - it would be nice to move on from the legacy BIOS but at the same time it works (for the most part), and having a firmware that tries to do more than bootstrap the machine I think is adding complexity that will end up needing even more workarounds in the OS (but maybe this will be negated by the fact that it's a far more structured and easier to program environment).

That is to say nothing about any 'benefits' that a pretty GUI will afford - I don't really care about that.

It's probably inevitable though - aren't most Intel desktop boards shipping with a UEFI firmware now but just booting with legacy BIOS compatibility mode?

qwertylesh · 19th May 2009, 2:50 PM

Would UEFI bioses increase the amount you need to flash to your bios chip when updating a bios though? couldnt have extra features like a more advanced HAL, just add another area of potential vounerability by remote code execution? These sort of possibilities puts me off the idea of UEFI over traditional legacy BIOS, that and that mac had it first rofl.

loophole · 21st May 2009, 12:20 PM

You're right - UEFI BIOSs are larger (32MBit vs 8MBit) so you will have to write more information to them per BIOS flash.

Call me crazy, but I like my device drivers to live in my OS. Far fewer eyes look at firmware code compared to OS code which means a lot more potential for bugs to creep in.

For those interested here's the LinuxBIOS (now coreboot) talk from FOSDEM 2007:
http://ftp.belnet.be/mirrors/FOSDEM/...-LinuxBios.ogg

(also lightly covers EFI vs traditional BIOS, etc)

proffesso · 21st May 2009, 2:24 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by qwertylesh

Well some of the existing PC motherboards with EFI arent all that crash hot, its just giving the manufactures a chance to load more shit like BIOS games and whatever, sometimes simple is better (imo)

mac's have no gimmicky crap in its EFI. pc makers for some reason like to load shit on for no apparent reason

DiGiTaL MoNkEY · 26th May 2009, 9:33 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by proffesso

mac's have no gimmicky crap in its EFI. pc makers for some reason like to load shit on for no apparent reason

They just see it as more stuff = more value. Which bloatware for users is just a pain for most.

18th May 2009, 1:13 PM	#32
ayles Member Join Date: Mar 2005 Posts: 458	take that back dude, that movie taught me everything I know. "33mhz processor" __________________ 2500k @ 5.0ghz ~ ripjaws 8GB @ 2.1ghz ~ GTX 580 SOC @ 1ghz ~ Corsair tx-750 ~ Antec P182b ~ Razer Mamba 4G Dual laser ~ SA950 27" 120hz + Panasonic Veria 50" 1080/24p Plasma ~ Yamaha 5.1 Home Theatre

18th May 2009, 1:32 PM	#33
Camotec Member Join Date: Sep 2005 Location: Bathurst, NSW Posts: 21	EFI is the next step and it is a lot faster and it works which mean we dont have to leave hardware negotiation up to Microsoft... about bloody time people looked at this seriously. __________________ Intel Core 2 E8400 nVidia GTX260+

18th May 2009, 10:42 PM	#38
loophole Member Join Date: Dec 2005 Location: Melbourne, VIC Posts: 313	I have to admit though, I'm pretty interested in coreboot, but it will take them a while to reach maturity for consumer grade boards...

21st May 2009, 12:20 PM	#42
loophole Member Join Date: Dec 2005 Location: Melbourne, VIC Posts: 313	You're right - UEFI BIOSs are larger (32MBit vs 8MBit) so you will have to write more information to them per BIOS flash. Call me crazy, but I like my device drivers to live in my OS. Far fewer eyes look at firmware code compared to OS code which means a lot more potential for bugs to creep in. For those interested here's the LinuxBIOS (now coreboot) talk from FOSDEM 2007: http://ftp.belnet.be/mirrors/FOSDEM/...-LinuxBios.ogg (also lightly covers EFI vs traditional BIOS, etc)