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Intro To Intel's Next-Gen BIOS Architecture

Posted by timothy on from the redefining-basic dept.

An anonymous reader writes "This article introduces the Intel Platform Innovation Framework for the Extensible Firmware Interface (EFI), which is intended to provide an alternative to BIOS that will allow for faster booting, manageability, and additional features. According to the author, there has been rapid evolution of the personal computer platform since the 1980s. These advances have included order-of-magnitude increases in performance, ease-of-use, storage capacity, and connectivity. But there is one element of the PC that has not changed for the past 23 years -- namely, the BIOS (basic input/output system)."

14 of 36 comments (clear)

  1. Why is that bad? by AKnightCowboy · · Score: 4, Insightful

    The awesome backward compatibility of the PC architecture is one of the main reasons it's the most popular personal computer platform. Besides, there have been tons of advances in BIOS technology over the past 20 years. Sure, the basics are still in there, but even 5 years ago you couldn't boot off a USB key fob or even over the network (PXE) on most motherboards. 10 years ago power management was basically non-existent and things like ACPI and APIC were years away. Extend, don't just throw it away. If you're going to get rid of it then at least adopt Openboot firmware like Macs and Suns have.

    1. Re:Why is that bad? by zulux · · Score: 4, Interesting

      If you're going to get rid of it then at least adopt Openboot firmware like Macs and Suns have.

      The fun thing about Openboot is that it's in Forth:

      On the Openboot prompt you can do this:

      $ 42 69 + .

      and it will spit out

      $ 111

      --

      Moneyed corporations, non-working 'poor' and criminal prisoners are turning productive citizens into tax-slaves.

    2. Re:Why is that bad? by aster_ken · · Score: 4, Informative

      OpenFirmware (defined in IEEE 1275 as updated in 1994) is no longer being maintained. It was withdrawn by the IEEE Standards Organization in, I belive, 1999. The rights to the document were sold to Global Engineering.

      This does not mean that OpenFirmware is dead. On the contrary, there are several commercial implementations available. It does mean that it is no longer considered a "standard", though.

      If you'd like some more information on OpenFirmware, you can visit the OpenBIOS web site.

  2. progress? by prof187 · · Score: 5, Funny

    According to the author, there has been rapid evolution of the personal computer platform since the 1980s

    What?! When did this happen and why wasn't I told? Time to trade in the vacuum tubes

    --

    My other sig is an import.
    1. Re:progress? by djdanlib · · Score: 4, Funny

      You had vacuum tubes? Back in my day, we didn't have electricity. We had to use colored rocks, and those were hard to find because the world was in black and white, and sometimes one of us would get eaten by a mountain lion! And we were thankful!

  3. Re:why? by obeythefist · · Score: 4, Informative

    EFI allows really big enhancements to the bootup procedures. Everything that happens from POST onwards in BIOS's today is a huge waste of time. (Especially on windows PCs, haha). All that time spend ennumarating ISA slots (what ISA slots?), floppy drives, hard drives, etc etc is a big time blowout.

    One of the biggest steps in moving from that 1-2 minute bootup time on a PC is getting rid of the 10 or so seconds we spend letting the BIOS do its thing.

    Why shouldn't you hit the "on" button and see the logon screen instantly? With more and more advances like EFI and solid state storage this might be closer than you think.

    --
    I am government man, come from the government. The government has sent me. -- G.I.R.
  4. Mama told me only buy 100% IBM compatible by Radical+Rad · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Otherwise you have to patch Lotus 1-2-3 to make it work.

    Seriously though, it seemed to me that at first this should break backward compatability but why couldn't BIOS emulation be plugged in as an EFI driver? All it has to do is provide the same software interrupts and it wouldn't even have to be loaded unless your OS needs BIOS to boot. Just because this "framework" isn't natively backwards compatible doesn't mean it couldn't be made backwards compatible.

    1. Re:Mama told me only buy 100% IBM compatible by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

      RTFA -- it will emulate the PC BIOS (see figure 3).

  5. Surely this brings DRM to life by rueger · · Score: 4, Insightful

    It strikes me that losing the hardware BIOS will almost certainly lead to some kind of DRM scheme - probably hardware related - that can't be bypassed by something like a boot floppy.

    In fact, I really can't believe that DRM won't be built into whatever replaces the BIOS chip.

    Course maybe I'm i'm just paranoid...

    --
    Three Squirrels
    1. Re:Surely this brings DRM to life by ctr2sprt · · Score: 3, Informative

      Look at the diagram. The first stage is "Security." That's where DRM would go. Its purpose according to the diagram is to verify the next stages, which would be to eliminate boot viruses. Personally, I think you're paranoid. But hey, even paranoid people are right sometimes!

    2. Re:Surely this brings DRM to life by IntlHarvester · · Score: 4, Informative

      You can do DRM in a conventional BIOS (see IBM systems now shipping)

      You can have a DRM-free EFI implementation (see Itanium systems now shipping)

      DRM and EFI aren't directly related at all -- although they will both become mainstream at about the same point in time.

      --
      Business. Numbers. Money. People. Computer World.
  6. Re:why? by Guy+Harris · · Score: 3, Informative
    I wouldn't be suprised if Intel tried to 'lock out' Linux, too.

    Presumably you mean locking out with something other than EFI, given that Linux supports EFI, as this ArsTechnical article notes ("Nevertheless, one thing is certain: Linux already runs on EFI boxen, so this isn't some evil ploy to kick Linux off of the PC.")

  7. Re:Boo... Hiss... by Thing+1 · · Score: 3, Insightful
    Just do Open Firmware you stupid NIH Intelidiots.

    Well, I think the answer's obvious. The same reason that drug companies scorn rain forest treatments and marijuana: because it can't be patented.

    --
    I feel fantastic, and I'm still alive.
  8. Some thoughts... by notsoclever · · Score: 3, Informative
    Okay, so EFI can emulate standard BIOS through a module. Which means that it can also obviously emulate OpenFirmware.

    Since OpenFirmware is also totally programmable, does that mean that OF could emulate EFI?

    It'd be interesting to see if future video cards decided to support EFI instead of x86-specific BIOS code. One of the big problems with getting video cards on the Mac is that they use x86 BIOS code which means that vendors need to make two versions, one PC and one OpenFirmware, and since the PC market is so much bigger the OpenFirmware version is usually 2-3x as expensive (and because of the development effort in making the OpenFirmware version, ATI et al do whatever they can to prevent people from just flashing the x86 version of the card with the OpenFirmware firmware).

    It sure would be nice to not have to pay $200 for the Mac version of a $75 Radeon...

    --
    There are 10 kinds of people: ones who understand ternary, ones who don't, and ones who think this joke is about binary