BIOS go bye-bye

Major news. BIOS has been around since 1979, and is why it takes such a fucking long time to boot a PC.

Um... I'm confused, I was under the impression that firmware upgrades were already possible for existing systems.

EDIT: Oh, that's only for the later stages of the booting process. Okie.

edited 4th Oct '10 8:13:36 AM by Tzetze

This isn't really a gaming topic, is it?

It's tangentially related to computer gaming, so I guess it fits here... in a way.

edited 4th Oct '10 8:20:25 AM by Komodin

Tangentially, maybe. Would anyone be opposed to a move to OTC? I can see why it was posted here, but I'm not sure it should be, and I think this is something a more general audience might care about.

Eh, I wouldn't be against it.

Sounds good.

BIOS itself is actually even older than that, dating back to CP/M in the mid-1970s. IBM borrowed the term because most of the functions the CP/M on-disk BIOS did had been moved to the ROM on the original PC, thus the "ROM BIOS". (It was actually closer to the Apple II ROM in design than a CP/M BIOS, though, even including BASIC on the really old machines.)

Yeah, but it's annoying when it takes a long time to boot Windows on my quadcore.

The only real complaint about UEFI I've had so far is that so many things still expect to see a BIOS around that it's a little difficult to work with. Case in point: My ongoing project to get Linux going on a 2006-vintage Xserve. Linux supports EFI and GPT and all that, but my distro of choice (Debian) is still pretty BIOS-centric installer-wise.

As for EFI itself, I've played with an EFI shell, and it kind of reminds me of DEC's pre-boot environments, particularly the VAX boot ROM. (I haven't used Alpha SRM, so I don't know how that compares, but I imagine it'd be similar.)

That news article reads like an ad for Microsoft. EFI has been around since a few years, and the general roll-out into the main PC market was just a question of time. Macs have been using it since the move to Intel processors, so since 2006.

It's mainly pushback from legacy software people. This is legitimate to an extent, but there's gotta be a limit to how long we can let stuff written for MS-DOS hold back necessary advances in core technologies. BIOS has been due for an overhaul for forever.

Of course, Macs used to use the superior Open Firmware.

BIOS is not, by the way, responsible for the bulk of load times on the average Windows PC. That'd be all the crap people set to load at startup.

Oh man, now I need to go on Slashdot and watch the tinfoil hats come out.

THEY'RE COMING TO TAKE MAH LINUX AWAY!

Edit: Looks like I have to go back to 2005 to see some entertaining lunacy on the subject. Turns out it works with Linux just fine.

edited 4th Oct '10 2:50:37 PM by Korgmeister

Well, part of the problem with BIOS isn't that it's slow per se but that most of them have a ton of extra bits that add to load times because they scan for components and do other tests. For example, my old mobo had 2 separate SATA RAID controllers; leaving both enabled added a good 10 secs to boot even if there were no devices attached.

There's also the problem that it runs at the lowest possible system feature set for compatibility so has access to none of the hardware optimizations available in the OS.

Coming 2011? Looks like I made a good choice to upgrade my machine next year (was originally waiting for the new chipsets).

Wonder how this will effect overclocking.

edited 4th Oct '10 8:01:19 PM by deuxhero

So essentially it's still what most people would consider a BIOS (i.e. Basic/Boot-level Input-Output System), but with a different name and a modernized spec sheet.

I'm all in favor.