Writing an End to the Bio of BIOS?

An anonymous reader writes "Intel and Microsoft are gearing up to move toward the first major overhaul of the innermost workings of the personal computer. The companies will begin promoting a technology specification called EFI (Extensible Firmware Interface) as a new system for starting up a PC's hardware before its operating system begins loading."

Comments

OF?

[ChristTrekker]

Why not just use Open Firmware?

Re:OF?

[squiggleslash]

My guess is that OpenFirmware is seen as cryptic. The deal with current BIOSes is that you hold down DEL and up comes a nice, friendly, menu where you can configure anything in the BIOS you want.

Whereas most people used to OpenFirmware know the default interface involves writing things like:

1 1 + dup dup + dup + + base !

...and that's just to get it to give you numbers in decimal.

Not that there aren't ways around this, obviously. For starters, there's no reason why DEL can't just bring up a GUI (or arrow-keys/ESC/Enter text interface), it doesn't have to bring up a command line. The point though is that OpenFirmware is seen as hard, it has a serious image problem.

So?

[Anonymous Coward]

So what happens when Intel and Microsoft decide they don't want anymore competition?

EFI sucks

[SuperQ]

I have several IA-64 systems at work. IA-64 requires EFI (part of the intel spec). It's a major pain in the ass.. you have to have a dos fat formated filesystem to store bootloaders, and other utilities as a primary partition.. besides the fact that they changed the normal dos partition format for EFI. I wish they would have just ported OpenBoot.

What about AMD and Linux

[cybermancer]

When I see Microsoft and Intel working together I think of the platform lock-in of WinTel. This makes me wonder if they plan to have secret hooks offering advantages to their products. It will of course only be a matter of time for the likes of AMD and Linux to get up to speed, but sometimes a little time is all it takes to improve a market advantage through unfair practices.

Re:What about AMD and Linux

[Cr3d3nd0]

Not to step outside the Slashdot standard but remember, we do live in an open market. If Microsoft and intel try to pull this kind of stunt, even the most basic computer user is going to notice. ("Why can't I download my mp3's of the net etc.") Then along comes a company that sells a board that's compatible with the newer processors but lacks the DRM and guess what all the computer manufacturers will chose. Before you put on your tin hats remember that we still control what we purchase, and we only put up with what we allow big business to get away with.

Re:What about AMD and Linux

[the_mad_poster]

That works great in market situations where people have a tiny clue as to what they're buying. The PC industry is, for the most part, clueless from stem to stern.

Joe Schmoe goes to buy a new car. He gets in a Ford Focus and the fast talking lipman tries to sell it. But Joe Schmoe doesn't like it, it's too slow.

The Lipman puts Joe in a Focus SVT. Okay, not as slow, but Joe's not very comfortable.

Lipman puts Joe in a Mustang, but that's not comfortable either, so he puts him in a Taurus. The Taurus isn't much Joe's style, but it's not too terribly sluggish and it's comfy, so he takes an SeS. Joe has made an intelligent buying decision by weighing his desires against his wallet and picked a reasonable compromise between all of the things that are important to him. Joe's car will work everywhere, and if someone tries to interfere with that, he'll notice. Joe is reasonably clued about this market.

Now, Joe needs a computer. Joe don't know electronics, so Joe goes to Circuit City and starts looking at computers. Joe knew what "200 hp" meant and even had a reasonable understanding of how the torque came into play in his new Taurus. But, Joe doesn't know how the combination of an "onboard video card" and the processor and the "memory" and the speed of the hard drive all come into play. Joe knows he wants to watch DVDs and he wants to surf for porn. The Lipman in Circuit City tells him that this new Compaq has everything he needs. Joe pretends to know what he's looking at, then buys it because it has a soundcard and a DVD-ROM. Joe doesn't know what DRM is, nobody mentioned it, and since he has a DRM'ed system, he'll almost never notice things not working because it always silently grants him access because he's "trusted". Anything that doesn't work will be written off as "broken".

The geeks, on the other hand, being a horribly underwhelming minority, are screaming bloody murder because they can't access half the sites on the net. Google sucks now and we can no longer listen to mp3 samples or watch movie trailers.

Tens of millions of Joes never know anything about the troubles of a couple hundred thousand geeks. DRM has been slipped into everything because the target market has no clue what it is, nobody tells them, and they don't think to ask.

So yes, it's an open market. But, it's an open market controlled by idiots.

Of course...

[SharpFang]

Of course that woukld include obligatory, non-overridable DRM chip driver?
Big Brother Has You!

Of interest to console makers?

[Channard]

Particularly Microsoft themselves - if X-Box reaches a third iteration - I doubt this'll make X-Box 2. It may well allow them to put a stop to the old trick of soldering in a new bios chip that takes precedence over the onboard bios, thereby allowing the user to run all sorts of software, legal oses and programs and illegal pirate copies.

Figures.

[alecto]

No mention at all in the article of what has to be one of the biggest reasons for the push to change the boot process: Digital Restrictions Management/Trusted Computing/Palladium/Next Generation Secure Computing Base. (Notice how the name gets changed every time it becomes obvious what it really is.)

Coming: The Year of the Infected Bios

[Alien54]

Seriously, the more complex you make the code in the bios, the more chance for security flaws built into the hardware itself.

Imagine the horror of having to patch a system by swapping out chips. I think I recall some old time viruses that basically screwed up the bios royally, and which were not easily cleanable, to one degree or another.

Remember, this design is supposed to be a feature, not a flaw.

Re:No progress for ANYBODY!!!!

[jejones]

So in other words, since its not specifically good for Linux it shouldnt be done?

That's an inaccurate paraphrase. The concern, and a valid one, IMHO, is that MS will attempt to use this to lock out competition. IOW, the question is whether this is going to be designed to be specifically bad for Linux.

Re:Well if Microsoft's involved....

[gstevens]

You guys are all forgetting one thing: Intel is involved, and they have a lot invested in Linux. There are millions of x86 boxes out there running Linux instead of Sun, IBM, HP, etc boxes running some flavor of Unix. Intel knows this, and they like it. They're not stupid...

Re:Microsoft Logic

[Abjifyicious]

Well it's not like the Linux community is completely helpless in the legal department.

If MS did try and bully hardware manufacturers into altering hardware to lock out Open Source systems, I would think that Red Hat, Suse, Mandrake, etc. would all be after them with lawsuits, and if MS tried to get a law passed requiring DRM in the hardware or whatever, I'm guessing there would be at least several thousand letters sent to politicians from Angry Linux Users protesting such a law. And then there are all those companies that use Open Source Software who'd be pissed off if they were forced to switch to MS software just 'cause MS said so. Not to mention the fact that the government itself is starting to switch to Linux.

Seriously folks, we're not just gonna wake up one day and find that all our favorite OS's have been outlawed.

Re:Intel would never adopt OF

[Burnon]

So, earlier someone posted a link to a summrary of a discussion on the Linux kernel list. An Intel guy pointed out some issues with the Openfirmware model that make some sense.

The way I read it is, hardware manufacturers want cheap products, and nobody wants to get locked in to supporting just one system architecture for an expansion card.

With something like openfirmware, apparently you have to have a ROM big enough to contain valid code that can run on both IA-32 and IA-64 and PPC, etc., or you end up with things like PC-only and Mac-only cards, which isn't cheap, either. So as nasty as ACPI has been from an implementation point of view, it seems like it does some stuff that open firmware can't do. Same can be said for EFI. Seems like a hell of a problem to me - damned if you do, damned if you don't.

Now, that said, no arguments about the other fringe benefits Intel gets from pushing the standard.

P.S. To my mind, Linus' post on the issue in the thread seems like something that your average software dude (self included) might come up with. Come up with simple hardware specs that don't need ROM code, and standardize on THAT. I'd kill for that kind of utopia in my line of work. I don't work in PCs, I work in embedded systems. All the hardware guys talk about gaining a competitive edge by locking people into their proprietary hardware via a software interface that they control. Same thing going on here - it's not the software dudes in the industry that need convincing - it's the hardware and business dudes who aren't looking to the future, but to the next product.

Along with...

[mykepredko]

IBM, Hitachi, Fujitsu and Siemens. IBM offers 32 bit systems based on EFI as well (I believe written by AMI).

I've been working with EFI based systems for three years now. Nicer than BIOS/MS-DOS for test weenies like me to develop code for.

Have a Happy New Year!

myke

Re:Microsoft Logic

[diakka]

Seriously folks, we're not just gonna wake up one day and find that all our favorite OS's have been outlawed.

If everyone had your attitude, then I feel confident that day would come to pass.

It's the paranoid and vigilant who will work to protect freedom. The fact that this discussion is taking place should be a warning to MS that we will not take any such lock out attempt lying down. Should it be the case that EFI is not used for lock out purposes, you'll surely say, "See, you were just paranoid". But however it turns out, paranoia is indisputably the safer option.

BTW, anyone have Linux booting on the all-in-one Gateway 610 Media Center desktop that was mentioned in the article? Perhaps that could give us further insight.

Re:Microsoft Logic

[Billly Gates]

"Seriously folks, we're not just gonna wake up one day and find that all our favorite OS's have been outlawed."

You know, back in 99 I heard a similiar argument by the vast majority of slashdotters in regards to a new propossed law called the DMCA.

I myself called RMS and the EFF, lunitics and mentioned it here in regards to it. I got modded +4 informitive. My responses were on the line of ya, like they are going to sue innocent software developers who want to watch DVD's or those who bad mouth a company.

Come on get real. The dmca will never be used to cancel free speech.....

Well, I was shocked to find out not only was RMS and the EFF right but it was far far more worse then imagined.

Why can't I watch my own dvd's?

You know what? What would MS and the MPAA do if I wrote a patch for Lilo or grub that uses the ultra secret boot signature? I would get thrown in the federal "slam me in the ass" prison!

I just posted another post mentioning how Linux will be still supported for some time like OS/2 is from many bios's. But still I am extremely cautous.

ALso look at soyo with the ACPI installed by default on some of their motherboards due to a bug. Linux and FreeBSD at the time could not use ACPI properly with it and it caused a major headache. The same could happen if pallidium is on by default so manufactors could avoid headaches with Linux support. I doubt this but its certainly possible.