The PC BIOS is a dreadful thing. Poorly standardised and often poorly implemented, it has one job to do and frequently does it badly. The kernel and bootloaders are obliged to devote extensive sections of code to working around issues present in the BIOS, code and time that could have been better spent elsewhere. Everyone agrees that the PC BIOS is awful.
January 21st, 2012 at 16:31
Incredibly interesting. Thanks!
January 23rd, 2012 at 20:13
Isn’t this precisely what Coreboot is set to address? Methinks everyone should get behind this project and make sure the OEM are compatible.
January 23rd, 2012 at 20:16
Hmm ok so GG started blocking links so time to disguise. HyperTexTransPort colon slash slash coreboot org
January 24th, 2012 at 04:05
test
January 24th, 2012 at 04:18
Tiano is Intel’s reference implementation of UEFI. UEFI Spec does not require the use of Tiano implementation. Besides, do not tribute implementation bugs as spec being “awful”.
No one system implements everything in the 1500-page UEFI Specification or use all 7601 files of Tiano code. The modularity and flexibility allow the pick and choose of the needed code, that is crucial to the faster boot time enabled by UEFI. Nobody is putting on a system a 100MB UEFI BIOS. UEFI can be in the 100K’s.
January 25th, 2012 at 13:56
Microsoft has a very good history of trying to stop Linux progressing. He says that they have their point, but I think that there is a pretty big probability that they use secure boot mostly to make sure they dominate the market(cause from stats Linux and Mac grow faster than Windows now). I don’t say that’s the reason but it can be…
January 25th, 2012 at 16:10
@BernofMiracles I’m pretty sure the vendors don’t really care. If they did care, we would have pretty well-written BIOS all around already, and there would be few bugs in Tiano itself. So we will be lucky if the vendors don’t actually introduce new bugs to the system!