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More Power To The Firmware
An anonymous reader writes "In More Power To The Firmware Amit Singh talks about technical details of EFI, the next-gen BIOS replacement standard Intel, Microsoft and others are pushing. This is a very informative piece where he talks of issues with legacy BIOS, how it affects those who develop in the firmware environment and how EFI plans to solve these problems. EFI usage examples are included, including a programming example. He contrasts EFI with Open Firmware as well. IMO the second half of the article is even more interesting, where sample FORTH code is provided for displaying a window/mouse pointer GUI inside the Apple/Mac firmware! And of course, there's code for a new 'Towers of Hanoi' animation using the Mac firmware (remember Hanoimania?). Aspiring Mac Firmware Hackers could also check out the suggested projects ;-)"
I'm not in favor of increasing the complexity of the bios. They can barely get them stable after a few updates now, how will it be when they are doing alot more? Yeah I know that Sun Sparc's have a complicated bios, but they did it right. I don't trust Microsoft and Intel to do it right.
thisnukes4u.net
We don't need DRM built into the BIOS, and that's exactly what would happen if Microsoft had a say in it.
I agree that we don't need more complexity. Let the OS handle the hardware as much as possible.
- It's not the Macs I hate. It's Digg users. -
Here's a link to an older KT entry; "Status And Discussion Of EFI (Extensible Firmware Interface) Support"
Explains some history, rationale and technical details.
Belief is the currency of delusion.
Glad to see there is attention being paid to the firmware end of things both commercially and as open source - that's one area your average geek is a little leary of toying with, due to Inoperative Hardware potential.
What I always worry about is the non-techical end of these things. BIOS level control on what software a computer can run is a much harder obstruction to overcome than things like driver issues. I wonder if they won't use the "Next Generation" mantra to say this is the perfect time to pass legislation that requires DRM control be built into all computational devices. OpenBIOS wouldn't be of much use if DRM laws require a closed system.
Also, if firmware gets too smart, you might get things like a DVD drive refusing to play a movie unless your operating system can guarantee it that you computer doesn't have the ability to copy content illegally.
When you can program games in BIOS level systems, I start to get a little wary. Keep my BIOS to the minimum please - configuration options needed to handle my hardware (things like boot order, low level configuration options the OS shouldn't know about, etc.) should be all the capability needed. A BIOS should be simple, efficient, and stick precisely to its job. I've got an OS for the rest. If the new system is good for that type of work, excellent. But if the hardware starts getting too smart for its own good, then I might wind up hauling out those two Sun Ultra 1s I bought - they should run more or less forever and I'll live with slower speeds in order to stick with a consumer friendly machine.
"I object to doing things that computers can do." -- Olin Shivers, lispers.org
Let me add something that I find remarkable: I have not seen a single reference to Open Firmware in any EFI specification, presentation, whitepaper, or related document. Perhaps I did not look hard enough. This is not a criticism though. Some might argue that EFI's pathbreaking-ness is valid in the context of PCs, so it is appropriate not to mention prior similar ideas.
I'm not quite sure what that last part means - how can you say it's not appropriate to mention when the technology is so similar? Just because it hasn't been used on PC's before is no reason not to learn from what has been used before.
I would have liked to see more of a comparison of exactly whe EFI gives you over Open Firmware of today - I gathered it was the custom pre-boot programs and network connectivity, but I would have liked to see more examples of new things that make use of these features that you can't do in Open Firmware.
It's funny to have a whole article about EFI then show all the cool things you can do with an advanaced BIOS by giving Open Firmware demos. Sort of like watching a Longhorn demo of transparency in UI while working on a Mac.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
You do realize that once this is in place, the **AA will convince Congress that only pirates, criminals, and terrorists would possibly want a computer without a "trusted" BIOS, don't you? Non-trusted hardware will go the way of Macrovision-free VCRs and Broadcast-flag-free HDTV tuners. When all of the Linux users and OS hackers raise holy hell, the response will be:
Jack Valenti: "These people are just a fringe nitch. Why should we threaten our precious content just to cater to the whims of a few people?"
Bill Gates: "The 'Trusted Computing Consotium' has made available [closed, blackboxed, and encrypted] APIs to the 'trusted hardware' industry spec. Why can't Linux use them just like any other OS?"
dinner: it's what's for beer
I've been using EFI (on Itanium) for quite some time, and have had zero issues with it. I really like the fact there are DCHP modules that allow networking to be started without the OS running. They have ftp servers, disk drivers and you can boot your machine from a remote image using bootp services. If your OS is dead on your disk, you can restart to efi and download a previous image on to your harddisk (or remote boot/install). Heck, you can run your code without even booting the OS. Imagine dedicated distributed.net clients that run straight from EFI without the overhead of an OS.
While I understand people have concerns that Microsoft is using this as a DRM delivery mechanism, there is nothing that is stopping Microsoft from working with Phoniex to add DRM to today's bios's. EFI (and non-legacy bios environments like openBios) make it easier for non-windows OSes to run on new Hardware. This isn't in microsoft's best interests. Microsoft wants a bios that only runs signed code (like their XBOX), so that you have to ask them nicely for a key to your equipment.