BIOS' Days Are Numbered

Ninja Master Gara writes "While this article shows Phoenix expanding the uses of the bios, ZDNet UK reports Intel is looking to get rid of it altogether, to be replaced with the Extensible Firmware Interface (EFI) as announced at the Intel Developer Forum. EFI promises a considerable amount of flexibility to system control and startup, legacy support, and programability. And it gets rid of text mode only start up too."

Comments

Yeah get rid of BIOS

[vivek7006]

by giving it some other fancy name! U need to have something between hardware and the OS. Call it whatever you want to call

OpenFirmware pls

[jpt.d]

What else is there to say? OpenFirmware works nice

Stricter Enforcement for DRM

[Apple Acolyte]

If BIOS isn't broken, one wonders why there needs to be a fix. One can pretty confidently assume that such a change would usher in stricter enforcement for DRM. And I'm sure it simply solidifies the work MS largely completed through its XP registration scheme. Perhaps I'm paranoid, but can any of you blame me?

Gets rid of text-mode startup?

[meringuoid]

I _like_ text mode startup.

Machines that give you a graphical startup are annoying because you don't see the POST test etc, and if you're messing about with the hardware that's a real nuisance; you're never sure what's gone wrong.

If you're a geek, you definitely want the boot information. If you're not, just watch it scroll by and think about how cool it is in a Matrix sort of way. But don't cover it over with a manufacturer's logo and a Microsoft ad...

Re:Gets rid of text-mode startup?

[MisterFancypants]

Just because it does away with text-mode startup doesn't mean it can't give you all the information it does currently. Just like replacing a line-printer with an inkjet doesn't mean you can't use it for text printing.

Re:Gets rid of text-mode startup?

[gwernol]

Machines that give you a graphical startup are annoying because you don't see the POST test etc, and if you're messing about with the hardware that's a real nuisance; you're never sure what's gone wrong.

Of course there is absolutely no reason why a graphical startup can't (perhaps optionally) display all the usual POST test messages. A good example of this is Mac OS X: by default you don't see the Open Firmware messages during startup but you can turn them on and get all the information you would expect.

If you're not [a geek], just watch it scroll by and think about how cool it is in a Matrix sort of way. But don't cover it over with a manufacturer's logo and a Microsoft ad...

Some text-mode BIOSes already do this. The issue is not text vs. graphics, its what features and options does your particular EFI or BIOS vendor give you.

Re:Text mode start up screens

[Anonymous Coward]

The problem with graphics bootup is that if there is a hardware problem, you will see nothing. Displaying a text message like 'bus barfed' is trivial, handling a terrible, terrible problem in gfx mode, not so.

The problem with PCs is that they are generally consumer-servicable and are designed so that you can plug all kinds of hardware into it. This calls for an extensive and reliable startup code that can tell you something more than you could deduct from the fact your OS is not booting. I know my computer is Compaq/HP/IBM, I'd appreciate something else than a purrty BIOS logo.

Re:Goodbye BIOS as well as..

[Azureflare]

What will replace the floppy drive? Granted, it's antique, and @#$ing slow, but what other method do you have to transfer small files easily between two computers, without the net? Granted, everything should just be net based, but what happens if your net connection goes down? Floppy drives are simple, easy to use, and widely available in PCs. Also, you can't monitor a floppy drive like you can emails ;)

no, wrong direction

[g4dget]

The BIOS should be replaced by another, hardware-vendor supplied GUI--that's just going in the wrong direction. I mean, who is going to talk to this thing? Why should something become easy to use that, if it ever enters the consciousness of the end user, is most likely going to result in the machine being returned for service anyway? Is software or hardware going to come with lengthy instructions for booting into the BIOS and fiddling with endless configuration screends?

"Normal" home users, the kinds of people who might benefit from a GUI, probably don't want to talk to anything other than their main, mainstream OS. And power users and network administrators want the hardware to come with a system that can be scripted, extended, and remotely controlled. And almost everything that needs to be done with the BIOS-replacement should be done from the regular OS, which can leave little scripts in non-volatile areas for what the BIOS-replacement should do when it reboots (as opposed to putting those instructions into the user's brain).

Yes, the BIOS needs a serious overhaul, and, yes, it needs to change a bit in the direction of becoming a better OS. But it should become a better OS that normal users never have to talk to directly. It should become a 32bit/64bit OS that much more than previously accomplishes its magic behind the scenes. If it needs a GUI at all, the GUI should probably consist of a web server (so that the BIOS can be configured over the net) and a built-in, simple web browser, not some Microsoft-wannabe-lookalike.

Re:because

[MarcQuadra]

OpenFirmware does NOT live on the Hard Drive, it lives in Flash ROM so it's semi-permanent. Compaq tried putting a BIOS Setup program on a 'secret' partition on the old Deskpro 2/4/6XXX machines and it was a total hassle to fix them if the drive died or somrthing happened to the partition, you had to load the BIOS Setup from _DISKETTES_. It was cool to have a GUI Setup with full diagnostics, but when the drive died so did the convenience. Don't even get me started on upgrading hard disks on those things.

Re:Text mode start up screens

[Proc6]

I'm sorry, I absolutely hate these minimalist "what we have is good enough" attitudes. Is what we have functional? sure? should it be forever white text on a black screen? fucking hell no. I have an SGI 320, which has a completely GUI PROM, and you know what? I really like it. Maybe you want to live in a dull world with ASCII terminals and Lynx as your web-browser, backing your data up to punch-cards and riding your 1971 Scwinn bicycle to work, but the some of us like cool shit.

By the way, ever seen the blank stare on an average computer user's face when you tell them "Oh, you can fix that in the BIOS, just hit the F2 key once you hear the POST beep, use the tab and +/- keys to navigate around and set the AGP aperature setting to 64MB, then hit F10 to Save and Exit." - yea, we can do better than this.

Re:Paladium

[arivanov]

That is exactly how will Palladium be implanted. You cannot graft palladium on top of the old IBM/Phoenix standard. You need to start from scratch and have a machine that is compliant from the moment the key is turned on.

In btw: nothing new here. This is the way all big Iron works. It starts enforcing licensing from firmware level so no way you can circumvent it.

So watch the words EFI. They are the words that will have to precede the words Palladium. Also do not even think about replacing the OS on such machine if the manufacturer has decided to disallow you to do so. And they very well can do this.