Uefi

[SXRguyinMA]

nice little article on what it is and why it's better than BIOS

Article (http://www.howtogeek.com/56958/htg-explains-how-uefi-will-replace-the-bios/?utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=250311&utm_content=emailsidebar)

[Snowman]

nice little article on what it is and why it's better than BIOS

Article (http://www.howtogeek.com/56958/htg-explains-how-uefi-will-replace-the-bios/?utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=250311&utm_content=emailsidebar)

Thanks now how can I put this on everything I own, tonight, without reinstall of os?

[DynamoNED]

Sorry, Snowman, but...


It’s not possible to put UEFI on BIOS-based motherboards, but odds are that when you buy a new system or perform an upgrade in the next few years you’ll be making the switch, perhaps without even realizing it.

[Konrad]

My question is who writes the UEFI firmware? Hopefully Asus and Gigabyte, not bloody Microsoft.

[Snowman]

Sorry, Snowman, but...

Looks alot like Asus ExpressGate so even thought they say it isn't possible I am sure somebody could figure something out :evil::banana:

[Konrad]

To be honest I don't really see the distinction. Firmware is firmware, who cares how many megabytes it holds (and how pretty it looks) if it properly runs the machine. As the linky itself states, today's BIOS is conceptually similar yet technologically revolutionary compared to it's predecessors.

I also suspect UEFI is somebody's clever (and patented) acronym ... the technology is here and it looks impressive but it'll probably still be called the BIOS (and even CMOS, lol) forever by everyone except some manual-writing eggheads at the motherboard factories ... or at least so long as PC architecture is predominantly concerned with still being fully compatible with ancient x86 software.

[Snowman]

To be honest I don't really see the distinction. Firmware is firmware, who cares how many megabytes it holds (and how pretty it looks) if it properly runs the machine. As the linky itself states, today's BIOS is conceptually similar yet technologically revolutionary compared to it's predecessors.

I also suspect UEFI is somebody's clever (and patented) acronym ... the technology is here and it looks impressive but it'll probably still be called the BIOS (and even CMOS, lol) forever by everyone except some manual-writing eggheads at the motherboard factories ... or at least so long as PC architecture is predominantly concerned with still being fully compatible with ancient x86 software.

While I don't disagree it would be nice to have that pretty graphical interface when overclocking especially for noobs like me:D

[Konrad]

I think it's the old school technology grog in me ... I love GUIs and pretty realtime graphs and colours, of course. But I see them as another layer of complexity, as magnitudes of "wasted" processing and memory resources, as yet another "moving part" prone to failure. Firmware is one thing I want to be able to depend on working reliably and efficiently with maximum performance, I instinctively see these pretty graphics as being a source of problems and updates and troubleshooting (and product activation and DRM controls and "value bundle" junkware and other unwanted crap) that I'd personally rather avoid, lol.

What's wrong with passing a lean and efficient ugly block of plaintext to the OS for application-layer code to process and display?

Small code runs faster. Simple machines are more reliable. Yet the world forgets all this only because we can build faster and bigger and cheaper than ever before.

[xr4man]

someone correct me if i'm wrong, but i believe that the uefi is just small firmware as you describe you like. it's the individual manufacturers that add in the pretty gui. i think that the pretty gui only runs when you actually go into the uefi interface. i'm going on this assumption because i recently read an article about uefi that showed screen shots from different manufacturers and at least one of the interfaces was just plain blue with white text just like the old bios. so that leads me to believe that the pretty gui isn't being passed to the system or the OS, but is only there as eye candy when you open up the uefi as a user.

the main thing with uefi is that it can boot from much larger hard drives than bios and it incorporates the bios extensions that are, for lack of a better term, hacked in to the old style bios.that should actually make uefi more stable and reliable than bios.

[Konrad]

So it's essentially just a BIOS that has been scaled for today's (and some of tomorrow's) hardware. Why change the name then? Does "UEFI" just refer to the pretty GUI stuff?

I'm not being critical of the tech (well, maybe the acronym), I'm just saying that I'm wary of it. Handwaving flashy eye-candy has always covered up (or created) technical issues in the past, drowning "core" stuff under waves of acclaim by masses of greedy bleating sheep; companies like Apple have built their entire megabillions strategy around this idea. I like pretty stuff myself, but not if it sacrifices what really matters or somehow breaks a part of the machine that has worked (almost) perfectly for a quarter century. EUFI appears promising and it'll probably be quite good by 2nd-3rd gen, plus by then we'll have no choice but to use it anyways when buying a new computer.

[Kayin]

We're on something like 4th gen. It's been out in retail Intel boards, Apple computers, and my own dohexacore setup for a long time.

BIOS is dead, becfause it's not intended to ever support change. Therefore, 3TB HDDs, SSD, and a lot of other technology is either poorly supported or not at all. UEFI would actually allow you to get on the internet and find a missing driver if it were preventing you from booting. It's a pretty neat tech that's been around for forever and just now making it to mainstream, mostly because of bias like you've mentioned.

Yes, small and simple has less room to fail, but it can also only do so much. As we move forward, complexity must unfortunately increase unless we wish to stifle change.

[xr4man]

So it's essentially just a BIOS that has been scaled for today's (and some of tomorrow's) hardware.

i believe that is a pretty accurate way of looking at it.


Why change the name then? Does "UEFI" just refer to the pretty GUI stuff?


i believe uefi is the name of the underlying firmware and each manufacturer just puts their eyecandy, or lack thereof, as an overlay or shell of the uefi.

at least that's the way it comes across to me.

[blaze15301]

I herd about this 2 years ago and they was saying it would be implemented into the boards by 2011. Its just going to cause more issues but I am curious to see how it works.

[Kayin]

UEFI-universal extensible firmware interface. Couldn't remember it earlier.

[x88x]

Since there seems to be a lot of confusion about what this actually is..
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UEFI
http://www.bit-tech.net/hardware/storage/2010/06/01/are-we-ready-for-3tb-hard-disks/4

As I understand it, the EFI structure simply allows much more flexibility in dealing with hardware than a 16-bit BIOS. One of the upshots of this, as Kayin hinted at, is the ability to address the LBA issues that keep 16-bit BIOSes from handling 3TB and larger HDDs.

EDIT:
Regarding the GUI, anyone remember any of those old BIOSes years back that actually used the mouse? :D

[AmEv]

My dad's work laptop has a mouse-required BIOS.

Two years old, tops. Dell something-or-other.

[Airbozo]

I have been using something similar to EFI (UEFI's predecessor) since the 90's on SGI systems. An absolute necessity due to the hardware complexities. Now using several Intel systems that use UEFI, but unless you need to update firmware or other specific items you never need it. Firmware updates on these Intel servers is a multi step process that is a pain in the behind... At least you can use a flash drive.

[Kayin]

UEFI's been around since like the Pentium Pro days. Like Airbozo said, the more complex it gets, the more it needs it. My board has it (it's quad Opty, it's pretty complex...)

[AmEv]

It makes sense that UEFI can't be a drop-in replacement for BIOS, IYTAI.

[Snowman]

It makes sense that UEFI can't be a drop-in replacement for BIOS, IYTAI.

No reason you couldn't drop it in a flash drive and set bios to quiet boot to usb, seems like a pretty good retrofit to me:D

[Airbozo]

No reason you couldn't drop it in a flash drive and set bios to quiet boot to usb, seems like a pretty good retrofit to me:D

Well, I was going to laugh at this, but from what I have learned UEFI has some capability to do just this. Not current BIOS's though.

[Snowman]

Well, I was going to laugh at this, but from what I have learned UEFI has some capability to do just this. Not current BIOS's though.

neener neener neener.. It would be something like asus' expressgate except hopefully working a lot better on a retrofit