What Technology Was Designed to Replace the Bios and Is a Firmware

flickr/Enrique Vicente

When you plough on your figurer, a primitive organisation that dates back more than xxx years, the basic input/output system (BIOS), turns your cold hardware into a operation system that your operating arrangement can then boot from. Alas, it’southward sadly out of date. PC makers have slowly been replacing BIOS with the Unified Extensible Firmware Interface (UEFI). That’s all well and good, but one UEFI characteristic, Secure Boot, could exist used to
lock PCs into beingness simply able to boot one operating system: Windows 8.

[
Linux Foundation recommends fixes for UEFI roadblock
]

So, what’s really going on here? Is UEFI but a style for Microsoft and its about loyal original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) to keep Linux and other alternative operating systems out or is it more that? To reply that, let’s take a await at what’s what with UEFI.

What is UEFI

If you’re in the computer hardware business, you know that BIOS has been terribly outdated for decades. For case, a BIOS only has 1,024KB (kilobytes) of executable space. That, in turn ways, a BIOS has trouble starting upwardly the multiple peripheral interfaces (USB, eSATA,
ThunderBolt, etc.) devices, ports, and controllers on a modern PC. Just as annoying, the BIOS was never meant to initialize more than than a handful of devices so even if you tin go all devices ready to go it will take upwards to thirty seconds subsequently you turn the switch on before your PC is gear up to outset booting.

The figurer companies aren’t dumb. They knew that BIOS was obsolete even before the 21st century dawned. But, until recently they couldn’t agree on how to replace it.

In 1998, Intel started work on the “Intel Kick Initiative” (IBI), later known equally Extensible Firmware Interface (EFI). While Apple, in its Intel-based Macs, and HP, with its Itanium 2 servers, used information technology, the other OEMs and, needless to say, Intel’s rival fleck vendors, weren’t initially cracking on adopting EFI. In 2007, Intel, along with AMD, AMI, Apple tree, Dell, HP, IBM, Lenovo, Microsoft, and Phoenix Technologies, finally agreed to use UEFI (the re-branded EFI) as the universal replacement for BIOS.

Don’t mistake UEFI as existence purely a BIOS replacement. It’due south not.

UEFI is a mini-operating system that sits on summit of a computer’s hardware and firmware. Instead of being stored in firmware, as is the BIOS, the UEFI code is stored in the /EFI/ directory in not-volatile memory. Thus, UEFI can be in NAND flash memory on the motherboard or it can reside on a difficult bulldoze, or even on a network share.

The UEFI advantage

The outset matter you’ll observe about UEFI systems is that they boot faster and you can have even larger primary drives. The BIOS is unable to boot from hard disks with more than 2.2TB (terabytes). That’s a hard limit set in the Master Boot Record (MBR) that y’all tin can’t ready. In the BIOS MBR, the maximum space for a drive is adamant by the formula: 2 to the 32nd times 512 bits. This is an old hard drive addressing scheme. What it means in do is that all but the most upward-to-appointment computers can’t boot with hard drives that are larger than 2.2TB. With
3TB drives now condign common, OEMs have no option only to move to UEFI on loftier-end PCs.

UEFI uses the GUID (Globally Unique ID) Partition Table, both to supplant the MBR and address partitions. With GUID, you’ll exist able to boot from hard disks as large as 9.4ZB (zetabytes). How big is that? Well, everything — and I mean everything — on the Internet is believed to be
simply over 3ZBs. I don’t call up we take to worry well-nigh UEFI not being able to manage whatever drive information technology’s likely to run into someday presently.

From a business standpoint, BIOS has long been totally inadequate for PC repair and maintenance. Today, if a PC tin’t exist booted, a technician has to be onsite to fix the PC. BIOS but doesn’t support networking, never mind basic, remote troubleshooting and maintenance tools. With UEFI, an OEM can congenital in networking functionality and basic repair tools. For business use, a properly featured UEFI PC will exist far cheaper to support over its lifespan than its older BIOS brother.

Exactly what else you’ll get from UEFI depends on how your fleck vendor, PC OEM, and operating system vendors implement it. At the to the lowest degree, though, you can look to run across secure boot systems, easier network booting, and instant-on access to all your hardware. Information technology’south also possible that some vendors will implement basic operating organisation interoperability, such as access to a Web browser, without e’er needing to really “kick” the calculator into an operating system.

What’s the trouble?

If UEFI is and then great, why hadn’t you heard about it until the recent fuss over Microsoft trying to use its secure boot characteristic to
keep Linux off PCs? Ironically plenty, i reason is that for a long time Microsoft didn’t support UEFI. Even now, 32-bit Windows
doesn’t back up booting from a UEFI arrangement. Without Microsoft’south full support, OEMs were reluctant to commit to UEFI.

In addition, UEFI is just a framework. If an OEM wants to offer full support for all the possible hardware that might exist available on a given motherboard and offer diagnostic tools, information technology has to create them. That’s not cheap. Apple, HP, and IBM take fabricated the commitment, but other vendors have been biding their time.

At present that Microsoft is insisting that Windows viii PCs must support UEFI-secure boot — a sub-system designed to make certain that a PC only boots a legitimate operating system — you can be sure almost all 2012/thirteen PCs volition exist using UEFI as at least a basic BIOS replacement.

Contrary to popular opinion, Linux developers accept no trouble with secure kicking. Indeed, every bit The Linux Foundation white paper,
Making UEFI Secure Boot Work With Open up Platforms
(PDF), states, “Linux and other open operating systems will be able to take reward of secure boot if it is implemented properly in the hardware.”

The key is that Microsoft continues to dodge the question of how they’ll implement secure boot. Eventually, I doubtable Microsoft volition quietly back down from their “our way or the highway” approach to secure kicking and you’ll be able to both utilise secure boot and run any UEFI-compatible operating arrangement you want on a Windows 8 canonical PC.

That said, don’t call back that UEFI will plough out to exist some kind of panacea for rootkits and other depression-level malware. It’south not.

Indeed, it’s entirely possible that the UEFI itself, since it is both software and mimics an operating system, could itself exist attacked. The
latest UEFI specification, 2.3.1
(PDF) includes some malware defensive measures such equally commuter signing and hash-protected authentication. Simply, while UEFI will bring the states faster boots, more than storage access, better support options, it won’t bring united states of america the end of malware. UEFI secure boot computers volition be bully, but they won’t be miracle workers!

This article, “Cheerio BIOS, hullo UEFI,” was originally published at
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