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Old 11-08-2013, 12:44 PM   #1
Cocolate
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What Happens When UEFI Overthrows PC Manufacterers!?


So everyone knows the NEWEST latest and greatest innovation is coming from Intels billion dollar company. They designed it so the old Legacy BIOS is replaced by new up-to-date and brilliant new firmware; Unified Extensible Firmware Interface.

This basically is a chip on the motherboard that will contain a smallish OS with only 1 function: to find|boot your operating system. SKipping so many processes in Legacy BIOS, instead of the common 30sec (or longer in many average Americans lives), the new specification will boot in comonly under 10sec (between 5-6s).

Most of this is from my memory. There are many more benefits to using UEFI, well just have a look at this article to find a more fitting conclusion if mine hasn't done it for you here yet.

http://h30565.www3.hp.com/t5/Feature...-Your/ba-p/198 [credited:to=Cascade9]

HERES MY QUESTION:

With Ubuntu one of the only up-to-date OS's picking up the UEFI specificated road, allowing users to use their services, while still able to choose between MSWindoze and LINUX> yet Ubuntu is dropping at an alarming rate on DistroWatch.com, why, may we ask? Well, power users don't want Tony Stark powerz, feel me?

Problem is, when newer hardware manufactering companies, begin to adopt this new and improved BIOS replacement which has, of course and OBVIOUSLY, somehow enterlocked with MS, to deduct any, and all, other financial rival challengers. MS will be the ONLY OS to ride along with everyone's new rides. HP, Dell, Lenovo, Asus, MSI, Acer, Gateway, yada, yada...

System76 computers -[https://www.system76.com/]- are especially designed for a Linux based computer.

Now I know someone out there who knows for sure there is something I am not fully and totally aware of that is somewhere incorrect, and not 100% accurate, or precisely exactly specifically right. People around me, daily, places I go for questions related to computers and UEFI, I get the most blank, empty, redundent answers you would hardly ever expect from other fellow computer enthusiasts. "Oh, haha, Linux? Oh, haha, what's UEFI?" Oh, haha, you like to pay for your lack of sensibility and rugged uncoolness. You're paying for everything and you're telling the whole world to pay for what Linux is better than AND free, durrrrher.

So, Linux will get on the bandwagon at the last minute? I've tried at least 20 different Linux distros on my UEFI motherboard and Ubuntu *yawwwwn* 12.04 is the best ran install.

But everyone knows Ubuntu is great because you can Google a question, there's alot of conversation/information/tutorials using Ubuntu: convenience. However, Ubuntu is going 'Touch Phase', which is what brought me to my conclusion that Ubuntu is doing something remarkable, innovated, and useful to our Linux foundation. They're sucking at it cause their battling MS pretty much ALONE |for free| Head On. Thanks Ubuntu, although, I am still a power user, I can tinker with it, but what I really want to tinker with, is Arch Linux or Gentoo. Of which, mmmaybe are compatible, but finding a tut installing this software onto this type of hardware, good luck.

http://lifehacker.com/wearable-compu...ium=socialflow

http://www.pcworld.com/article/20592...tml#lsrc.fb_pc

Press pause on their stupid ad. Heres a stan to put it all on--> http://www.pcworld.com/article/20586....html#tk.fb_pc

Tony Stark- thats all Im saying until 2025> Tony Fn Stark!
 
Old 11-08-2013, 01:41 PM   #2
ozar
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Hello

I've been booting Arch (no Windows on my boxes) under UEFI for several months now and have had no problems with it, although it did take a few days of experimenting to get my head around the differences in booting with UEFI, and Legacy-BIOS. Anyway, I just used the HowTo articles found in the Arch Wiki and other online articles to get it all working.
 
1 members found this post helpful.
Old 11-08-2013, 03:06 PM   #3
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FWIW, the newly released Slackware 14.1 can install to/boot from UEFI systems.
 
Old 11-08-2013, 03:21 PM   #4
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When did EFI become new? EFI has been out in the woods since I was in college and mainstream since '05..

Arch boot's EFI
 
Old 11-08-2013, 04:17 PM   #5
Cocolate
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EFI's early development began in the early-mid 90's.

Hardware companies are now taking on the Windows 8 bandwagon of UEFI specified motherboards. Soon to be rid of Legace. Thus- Windows only booting computer.

Apposed to such as the few mentioned here which are available. There are many hundreds more distros that are not, for a single compatible install; not excluding already what's been mentioned.

Last edited by Cocolate; 11-08-2013 at 04:19 PM.
 
Old 11-08-2013, 04:35 PM   #6
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When I first started fooling with UEFI, I totally hated it, but once it started making sense to me, I've gotta say that it's not bad at all. I might even go so far as to say I like it better than Legacy-BIOS. Either way, I'm pretty sure it's only a matter of time before all distros will be fully compatible with UEFI motherboards.
 
Old 11-08-2013, 04:41 PM   #7
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Nonsense. There are literally millions of computers out there, on the Internet alone, which ... ... do not run the Windows operating system, and never will. Needless to say, hardware manufacturers are going to continue to "sell silicon" to everyone who will buy it: "the rumors of the world-domination of Microsoft Windows are severely over-rated" (with due apologies to the ghost of Mark Twain).

The UEFI project is simply intended to give "the firmware of (any) computer" a greater and more-realistic role in "what happens to the machine," regardless of what operating-system it runs. For example, in much the same way that the SMART technology of modern disk drives allows the drive itself to diagnose and sometimes to compensate for "its own" problems (without paying Peter Norton to do so ...), one of the objectives of UEFI was to enable meaningful diagnostics of (roomfuls of rack-mounted ...) machines that might not yet have any operating-system installed on them.

Another issue that UEFI tried to address was ... "what if the night-operator (who, quite unbeknownst to me, actually is a professional industrial-spy hired by my competitor) sticks <<an unknown and malicious DVD-ROM>> into my server at 2:30 in the morning and presses the 'Reset' button?!"

And then, the usual oh-so human problems ensued: UEFI is designed by a committee, but meanwhile, hardware engineers have products to ship on-time to paying customers so that they (the engineers ...) can continue to buy groceries. Plenty of mistakes were made. ROM-chips around the world were most-hurriedly "re-flashed." Life goes on.

"Hey! Sssshhhh!!! Don't tell anybody that all of us (Microsoft, Linux, yeah a-l-l of us ...) really are 'making it up as we go along!!!' They're supposed to think that we know what we are doing!!"

Last edited by sundialsvcs; 11-08-2013 at 04:44 PM.
 
Old 11-08-2013, 07:15 PM   #8
Cocolate
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Quote:
Originally Posted by ozar View Post
When I first started fooling with UEFI, I totally hated it, but once it started making sense to me, I've gotta say that it's not bad at all. I might even go so far as to say I like it better than Legacy-BIOS. Either way, I'm pretty sure it's only a matter of time before all distros will be fully compatible with UEFI motherboards.
My thoughts exactly. Once I had to learn how to use it, I had to do a ton of research, found out how much of a benefit it is to everyone today. It wasn't easy to learn about it because the best information comes straight from the manual itself- that being I think is it 10,000 pages? Anyhow its a large document and once I realized that, and most distros I would have liked to install couldn't, it became aparent to me most of the people I knew had NO idea what UEFI was exactly, and everyone either Loves Windoze, or Loves Linux, yet UEFI is coming to replace computer systems worldwide and nobody knows what It Is.

Quote:
Originally Posted by sundialsvcs View Post
Nonsense. There are literally millions of computers out there, on the Internet alone, which ... ... do not run the Windows operating system, and never will. Needless to say, hardware manufacturers are going to continue to "sell silicon" to everyone who will buy it: "the rumors of the world-domination of Microsoft Windows are severely over-rated" (with due apologies to the ghost of Mark Twain).
Computer hardware reaches its average fullfiled lifespan starting at 3 years.
 
Old 11-08-2013, 07:19 PM   #9
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I believe the average lifespan is three years for a laptop but not desktop. Towers have gotten so powerful that unless you work in 3D of game 3 years is no big deal. Sandy Bridge and 5xx nvidia cards are three years ago..

(sent from a 2008 laptop)
 
Old 11-08-2013, 07:26 PM   #10
Cocolate
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Quote:
Originally Posted by sundialsvcs View Post
The UEFI project is simply intended to give "the firmware of (any) computer" a greater and more-realistic role in "what happens to the machine," regardless of what operating-system it runs. For example, in much the same way that the SMART technology of modern disk drives allows the drive itself to diagnose and sometimes to compensate for "its own" problems (without paying Peter Norton to do so ...), one of the objectives of UEFI was to enable meaningful diagnostics of (roomfuls of rack-mounted ...) machines that might not yet have any operating-system installed on them.

Another issue that UEFI tried to address was ... "what if the night-operator (who, quite unbeknownst to me, actually is a professional industrial-spy hired by my competitor) sticks <<an unknown and malicious DVD-ROM>> into my server at 2:30 in the morning and presses the 'Reset' button?!"

And then, the usual oh-so human problems ensued: UEFI is designed by a committee, but meanwhile, hardware engineers have products to ship on-time to paying customers so that they (the engineers ...) can continue to buy groceries. Plenty of mistakes were made. ROM-chips around the world were most-hurriedly "re-flashed." Life goes on.

"Hey! Sssshhhh!!! Don't tell anybody that all of us (Microsoft, Linux, yeah a-l-l of us ...) really are 'making it up as we go along!!!' They're supposed to think that we know what we are doing!!"
UEFI being first developed around 1994, I believe. I never said there was a problem for the spec to boot ANY OS. The problem is any OS that needs to boot using UEFI must purchase a Key. Like Ubuntu- or, I believe, like any OS thats available to run on UEFI.

I can't explain anymore about the key, but thats the actual reason WHY just any distro WONT work on it. Intel and MS are like sister companies. Intel begin working on EFI in 1994, its been tried out with Mac in the past. Now with Windows 8, they allow a feature called 'Secure Boot' -to in a sense- Turn Off the UEFI specification> thus booting any MS OS. How can they start shutting off their own OS's on the newer models hardware> before long all computers will not have a 'Secure Boot' feature (such as my computer is missing)> the best OS now is Ubuntu.

Even though Ubuntu is making drastic changes that got them dropped from the distrowatch- what happens when suddenly *BAM* only Ubuntu works on those PCs, yet...just think about it, its a mess..

Last edited by Cocolate; 11-08-2013 at 07:32 PM.
 
Old 11-08-2013, 07:34 PM   #11
Cocolate
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Originally Posted by Germany_chris View Post
I believe the average lifespan is three years for a laptop but not desktop. Towers have gotten so powerful that unless you work in 3D of game 3 years is no big deal. Sandy Bridge and 5xx nvidia cards are three years ago..

(sent from a 2008 laptop)
I would agree strongly- Heck if you keep your tempertatures right, don't overclock, and don't stress out your /gears, you could easily have anything: such as Power Supply have a full lifespan of probably a decade, but for any server, or any average Americans PCs, the average computers hardware maximum full lifespan starts fading after 3 years. At least thats a part of the A+ CompTIA certs ciriculum.
 
Old 11-08-2013, 09:28 PM   #12
TobiSGD
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Cocolate View Post
UEFI being first developed around 1994, I believe. I never said there was a problem for the spec to boot ANY OS. The problem is any OS that needs to boot using UEFI must purchase a Key. Like Ubuntu- or, I believe, like any OS thats available to run on UEFI.

I can't explain anymore about the key, but thats the actual reason WHY just any distro WONT work on it. Intel and MS are like sister companies. Intel begin working on EFI in 1994, its been tried out with Mac in the past. Now with Windows 8, they allow a feature called 'Secure Boot' -to in a sense- Turn Off the UEFI specification> thus booting any MS OS. How can they start shutting off their own OS's on the newer models hardware> before long all computers will not have a 'Secure Boot' feature (such as my computer is missing)> the best OS now is Ubuntu.

Even though Ubuntu is making drastic changes that got them dropped from the distrowatch- what happens when suddenly *BAM* only Ubuntu works on those PCs, yet...just think about it, its a mess..
If a x86(_64) system has the Windows 8 Logo it must have an option in the firmware to disable Secure Boot. It also must have the feature to add user generated keys to the key database. Any x86(_64) motherboard/machine that wants to be licensed for the Windows 8 Logo program must have these features, so on desktop systems and laptops that problem isn't actually a problem. This is different for ARM hardware, but in the mobile space is Microsoft not relevant.

Last edited by TobiSGD; 11-08-2013 at 09:33 PM.
 
Old 11-09-2013, 01:46 AM   #13
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TobiSGD, I've told Cocolate about the ability to turn of secure boot before.

Quote:
Originally Posted by Cocolate View Post
There are many more benefits to using UEFI, well just have a look at this article to find a more fitting conclusion if mine hasn't done it for you here yet.

http://h30565.www3.hp.com/t5/Feature...-Your/ba-p/198 [credited:to=Cascade9]
Wow, you're 'crediting' a link to me that I was using to show how little it offers for normal users? LMAO.

http://www.linuxquestions.org/questi...4/#post5010848

Quote:
Originally Posted by Cocolate View Post
With Ubuntu one of the only up-to-date OS's picking up the UEFI specificated road, allowing users to use their services, while still able to choose between MSWindoze and LINUX> yet Ubuntu is dropping at an alarming rate on DistroWatch.com, why, may we ask? Well, power users don't want Tony Stark powerz, feel me?
Why? Unable to deal with gnome in a resonable way, the banshee revenue fight, dropping gnome 2.X for 'unity', spyware on the desktop, and now entering a new phase as copyright trolls.

That is just the shortlist, there is plently more reasons why.

Quote:
Originally Posted by Cocolate View Post
System76 computers -[https://www.system76.com/]- are especially designed for a Linux based computer.
Debatable as to what is meant by 'designed for linux'. System 76 just rebrands and resells other manufacturers laptops, mostly from lenovo.

Last edited by cascade9; 11-09-2013 at 02:28 AM. Reason: typo
 
Old 11-09-2013, 02:05 AM   #14
Randicus Draco Albus
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Cocolate View Post
yet Ubuntu is dropping at an alarming rate on DistroWatch.com
Quote:
Even though Ubuntu is making drastic changes that got them dropped from the distrowatch
Why are you mentioning it, let alone dwelling on it? Do you actually believe those numbers mean something? Forget about them and focus on reality.

As to your concern, I bought my new computer only a few months ago, and it has the options of disabling Secure Boot and enabling Legacy Mode.
 
Old 11-09-2013, 06:02 AM   #15
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Cocolate View Post
I would agree strongly- Heck if you keep your tempertatures right, don't overclock, and don't stress out your /gears, you could easily have anything: such as Power Supply have a full lifespan of probably a decade, but for any server, or any average Americans PCs, the average computers hardware maximum full lifespan starts fading after 3 years. At least thats a part of the A+ CompTIA certs ciriculum.
Don't confuse secure boot with EFI.

Last edited by Germany_chris; 11-09-2013 at 02:24 PM.
 
  


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