can i reboot into bios setup from grub?
 

is there any way to go from the grub prompt directly into bios setup?

the normal way to get into bios setup on my machine is to hit <F1> before grub comes up. however, the time window during which <F1> is recogized is annoyingly brief. (of course, usually i don't want a huge delay while booting, but when i WANT bios setup, the window passes way too fast!) so i find that i'm in grub when i wanted to be in bios setup. then, if i accidently hit <F1> too late, grub may proceed to booting linux, then i'm really annoyed because i have to wait for linux to come up, then shut it down again.

so what i'd like is some way to go "back" from grub to reboot, so i have another chance to hit <F1> at the right time.

better yet, if there were a way to boot directly into bios setup from grub, i think that would be so slick.

is there a way to do this? (either restart, or go directly into bios setup.)

thanks for any help.

nope. these two stages are totally seperate, you can't make grub change your bios to do this, and i'd be worried if you could... sounds like an accident waiting to happen.

I'd suggest, the moment your on the power or hit the reset button, start hitting the F1 key repeatedly. Try this.

When in GRUB menu, if you decide to reboot again, hit the arrow keys before it times out. This would disable the timer and you can either select the options from the menu and hit enter to boot into or you can hit Ctrl+Alt+Delete to restart.

in my experience, the current way of entering bios setup (requiring the user to hit a certain key in a brief time window) is quite error-prone already. it seems to me that giving users a clean programmatic way to enter bios setup by choosing it from a menu, would REDUCE errors.

What exactly is the difference between waiting for 5 seconds on a BIOS
prompt that says "Press F1" or "Press DEL" and one that uses a cursor to
locate the entry? In both cases the user has to a) find the right key(s)
and b) press them in a given time-frame. You're just changing the interface
to something YOU might like better.


Cheers,
Tink

it may reduce it from the user side, but systematically many bioses act in many different ways and unless there was some real simple failsafe way for a non-persistent setting to be set on the mobo itself you'd essnetially need to reprogram the bios to do this... no thanks.

yes, Tinkster, that's correct, i'm trying to change the interface to something i would like better. isn't that what configuration is all about? it's MY machine, and i don't see any reason not to.

there are a few subtle differences between hitting <F1> while the machine is starting, vs selecting a menu entry from grub. for one thing, i can adjust the grub timeout to my own liking. the timeouts right now are such that i often miss the <F1> window, but i almost never miss the grub window.

i don't think there is a way, with the current bios on this machine, to adjust the <F1> timeout. and even if that timeout were adjustable, i think it'd be preferable to be able to enter bios setup from grub instead. because the grub timeout is already long enough for comfortable interaction. why would i want to add ANOTHER longer delay for the <F1> on top of that, if it were possible to have just ONE timeout?

conceptually, i think it'd be cleaner to have bios setup be an option that could be reached via grub. that way, there's one user interaction at boot time, where i have all my choices available in one place.

if you read the words you're typing they kinda put out point back at you... e.g. you say "on this machine". what about the machine on the desk next to it? what about the what... 10,000 different bioses out there that all work very slightly different and will fail absolutely with the slightest incorrect meddling with. there is simply no framework to do this, so whatever may or may not constitute a good idea there is (at leats, to my knowledge) no standardised cross-boot bios interaction mechanism. some bioses allow this, i think my current box came with some dumb biuos config utility for windows from the vendor, but that's just them, so standards, no cross-platform anything and also not failsafe i recall... it is not possible.

a partial answer to my own question:

i discovered that grub has a builtin "reboot" command that can be trivially added to the grub.conf menu. this doesn't reboot directly into bios setup, but it does give me another shot at the <F1> window.

thanks to kevkim55 who suggested ctl+alt+del, which also reboots.

thanks to all who posted responses, even if you thought the feature i wanted was lame.

ughh no one (expcet tink) said it was lame.. just impossible. not sure why you needed to be told what ctrl alt del does either...

acid_kewpie, you seem to be arguing that because "not every" machine would be capable of taking advantage of this feature, that it should not be supported in any way. but if that philosophy were to prevail, linux would be a "least common denominator" system with very limited functionality indeed. for example, not every machine supports PCMCIA, USB, wifi, and a host of other features. if linux failed to offer support for them just because they are not completely universal, it would be non-competitive.

i don't see what's so wrong about offering users an OPTION to do conveniently what they can already do in a less convenient fashion.

also, it occurs to me that you have misunderstood what i was asking for. i was not asking for anyone to hack the bios to implement this feature. i just thought there might be some obscure existing feature of the bios that would enable the machine to boot directly into setup mode, and if there was one, it would be great if grub offered a way to access that feature.

if such a bios feature doesn't exist, i think that's too bad.

one of the potential benefits of such a feature is that it would simplify instructions that need to be given for procedures that involve changing bios settings. instead of saying "hit <F1> or <DEL> or <ESC> or whatever your machine requires", the instructions could just say to boot to grub and then enter bios setup. it would eliminate a system dependency.

another potential benefit is that while running linux, you could give a command that would boot into bios setup. again, this would make it simpler to document procedures.

conceptually, i think this is a very sound idea. while it might not apply to "every" machine, it would apply to any machine that has a bios and a bios setup mode.

disclosure: I may be a bit jaded after 38 years in the space exploration busines....

This looks like a classic case of losing track of what swamp is to be drained. I have personally re-booted my computers many hundreds of times. The only time I have a problem is when I (occassionally) forget the magic key to go to bios setup. 98% of the time, there is no issue.
MOST of the time, I do not want to see the bios setup. If my machine were in the hands of a novice, I would not WANT them to be able to get to the bios.

There may be a great debate as to how we could setup a bios to boot from grub, but I submit that there is no problem to be solved here. And--if Linux and OpenSource skills are available, there are far more pressing issues to work on.

Hi, dfong63.

I recall seeing http://linuxbios.org/index.php/Main_Page a long time ago. If you are interested in really changing the configuration, you might want to pursue that. I hasten to add that I do not know anyone who has used this ... cheers, makyo

heh, you clearly aren't understanding the arguments being put forward at all... never mind.

Easier solutions are invented whenever a task becomes tedious, most often by boring repetition. For instance, scripts are "invented" whenever one's tired of typing in the same commands over and over again.

So I'm wondering:
1. How often do you enter BIOS?
2. Why do you need to enter the BIOS? Isn't there an alternative solution?